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The  religion  of  Christ  in 
the  twentieth  century  . . 


The  Religion  of  Clirist 

in  the 

Twentieth  Century 


"  The  Christian  Religion  has  been  tried  for  eighteen  centuries; 
the  Religion  of  Christ  remains  to  be  tried." — Lessing. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York    and   London 

Q^bc  Iftnichcrbochec  press 

1906 


Copyright,  igo6 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


XTbe  fmicfterbocftec  press,  l^cw  IJorft 


PREFACE 

A  X  7"E  hear  much  to-day  of  the  **  New  Theo- 
logy "  and, — in  Germany,  in  France, 
in  England,  in  America, — many  works  of  great 
interest  and  value  are  contributing  toward  the 
evolution  of  a  truer  speaking  abotit  God. 

The  purpose  of  this  little  book  is  far  more 
humble.  It  makes  no  pretence  to  philosophical 
argument  or  definition.  It  has  to  do  solely 
with  the  consideration  of  what  constitutes, 
among  the  religions  of  the  world,  the  distinct- 
ively Christian  expression  of  that  feeling  after 
God  if  haply  he  may  be  found  which  is  the 
root  of  all  religion,  and  which  has  found  ex- 
pression in  many  and  varied  theologies. 

As  the  years  of  this  new  century  unroll,  the 
familiar  question  *'  What  is  Christianity  ? " 
presses  with  ever  increasing  insistence  upon 
those  of  us — and  we  are  a  great  company — 


IV 


Preface 


whose  main  business  is,  not  to  argue  or  to  de- 
fine, but  simply  to  live,  and  who  seek  a  religion* 
to  live  by.  What,  then,  in  all  truth,  was  the 
Religion  of  Christ,  the  religion  of  him  who  has 
for  nineteen  centuries  borne  the  title  of  the 
Anointed  of  God? — and  is  it  a  religion  by 
which  we  so-called  Christians  of  the  twentieth 
century  may  wisely  seek  to  live  ?  The  follow- 
ing pages  attempt  to  answer  these  questions  in 
the  spirit  of  the  seeker,  and  are  related  to  theo- 
logy only  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  held  true  that 
he  who  sincerely  seeks  to  do  the  will  shall 
know  sufficient  of  the  doctrine. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  New  Voices i 

"There  are,  it  may  be,  so  many  kinds  of  voices 
in  the  world,  and  no  kind  is  without  signification." — 
The  First  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Corinthians. 

II.   Dogma 24 

"  O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
the  knowledge  of  God!  how  unsearchable  are  his  judg- 
ments, and  his  ways  past  tracing  out!  For  who  hath 
known  the  mind  of  the  Lord  ?  or  who  hath  been  his 
counsellor  ?" — The  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans. 

III.  ECCLESIASTICISM      .  .  .  .  .  •  5^ 

"  In  that  day  shall  a  man  look  unto  his  Maker,  and 
his  eyes  shall  have  respect  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 
And  he  shall  not  look  to  the  altars,  the  work  of  his 
hands,  neither  shall  he  have  respect  to  that  which  his 
fingers  have  made." — The  Prophet  Isaiah. 

IV.  The  Protestant  Idea  ....       69 

"  The  children  of  Israel  in  times  past  said  unto 
Moses,  '  Speak  thou  unto  us  and  we  will  hear :  let  not 
the  Lord  speak  unto  us  lest  we  die.' 

"  Not  so,  Lord,  not  so,  I  beseech  Thee  :  but  rather, 
with  the  prophet  Samuel,  I  humbly  and  earnestly  en- 
treat, '  Speak.  Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth.'  " — 
Thomas  a  Kempis. 

V 


VI  Contents 


V.  Ultra-Protestantism      ....       82 

"  O  God  who  art  the  truth,  make  me  one  with  Thee 
in  everlasting  love.  It  wearieth  me  often  to  read  and 
hear  many  things.  In  Thee  is  all  that  I  would  have 
and  can  desire.  Let  all  doctors  hold  their  peace,  let  all 
creatures  be  silent  in  Thy  sight;  speak  Thou  alone 
unto  me." — Thomas  a  Kempis. 

VI.  The  Anglican  Church     ....     100 

"  The  woman  saith  unto  him,  Sir,  I  perceive  that 
thou  art  a  prophet.  Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this 
mountain  ;  and  ye  say  that  in  Jerusalem  is  the  place 
where  men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  saith  unto  her, 
Woman,  believe  me,  the  hour  cometh  when  neither  in 
this  mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem  shall  ye  worship  the 
Father.  .  .  .  The  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when 
the  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit 
and  truth  :  for  such  doth  the  Father  seek  to  be  his 
worshippers.  God  is  a  Spirit  and  they  that  worship 
him  must  worship  in  spirit  and  truth." — The  Gospel 
according  to  St.  John. 

VII.  Jesus  OF  Nazareth 118 

"  For  every  high  priest,  being  taken  from  among  men, 
is  appointed  for  men  in  things  pertaining  to  God  that 
lie  may  offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins:  who  can 
bear  gently  with  the  ignorant  and  erring,  for  that  he 
himself  also  is  compassed  with  infirmity;  and  by  reason 
thereof  is  bound,  as  for  the  people  so  also  for  himself, 
to  offer  for  sins.  And  no  man  taketh  the  honour  unto 
himself,  but  when  he  is  called  of  God,  even  as  was 
Aaron.  So  Christ  also  glorified  not  himself  to  be  made 
a  high  priest,  but  he  that  spake  unto  him, 

"  Thou  art  my  Son, 

"  This  day  have  I  begotten  thee  : 
as  he  saith  also  in  another  place, 

"  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever 


Contents  vii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

"  After  the  order  of  Melchizedek. 

"  Who  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  having  offered  up 
prayers  and  supplications  with  strong  crying  and  tears 
unto  him  that  was  able  to  save  him  from  death,  and 
having  been  heard  for  his  godly  fear,  though  he  was  a 
Son,  yet  learned  obedience  by  the  things  which  he 
suffered  ;  and  having  been  made  perfect,  he  became 
unto  all  them  that  obey  him  the  author  of  eternal  sal- 
vation, named  of  God  a  high  priest  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek."— 7"/^^  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 


VIII.  The  Way  of  Life 147 

"  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth  ;  the  flesh  profiteth 
nothing  :  the  words  that  I  have  spoken  unto  you  are 
spirit  and  are  life." — The  Gospel  according  to  St.  John. 

IX.  The  Religion  of  Christ   ....     169 

"  I  can  of  myself  do  nothing:  as  I  hear  I  judge:  and 
my  judgment  is  righteous:  because  I  seek  not  mine  own 
will,  but  the  will  of  him  that  sent  me.  ...  If  I 
do  not  the  works  of  my  P'ather  believe  me  not.  But  if 
I  do  them,  though  ye  believe  not  me,  believe  the  works: 
that  ye  may  know  and  understand  that  the  Father  is  in 
me  and  I  in  the  Father. "— 7//^  Gospel  according  to  St. 
John. 

X.  Conclusion 187 

"And  it  came  to  pass  .  .  ,  tliat  the  disciples 
were  called  Christians  first  in  Antioch."  —  The  Acts 
of  the  Apostles, 


The  Religion  of  Christ  in  the 
Twentieth  Century 


THE  NEW  VOICES 

' '  There  are,  it  may  be,  so  many  kinds  of  voices  in  the  world,  and  no 
kind  is  without  signification." — The  First  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the 
Corinthians . 

IT  has  been  truly  said  that  every  age  is  a 
middle  age,  and  every  time  a  time  of  tran- 
sition. The  sundry  and  manifold  changes  of 
the  world  never  cease  ;  mankind  is  powerless 
to  hold  itself  at  one  point  of  view,  and,  with 
the  varying  point  of  view,  the  old  things  for- 
ever become  new,  and  "  nothing  endures  with- 
out being  transformed." 

But  there  are  many  reasons  why  we  who 


2  The  Religion  of  Christ 

live  in  these  early  years  of  the  twentieth  cent- 
ury should  think  of  our  own  time  as  in  an 
unusual  degree  a  time  of  transition  ;  why  we 
should  be  especially  aware  of  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  changes  going  on  about  us,  espe- 
cially conscious  of  their  character  and  extent. 
For  the  expression  of  these  changes  meets 
us  at  every  turn  and  knows  no  let  nor  hin- 
drance. In  all  ages  the  great  souls  have 
attained  freedom  of  thought  and  freedom  of 
speech  —  and  have  taken  the  consequences 
of  this  attainment,  the  cup  of  hemlock,  the 
cross,  the  stake, — but  in  no  age  before  our 
own  has  such  freedom  of  thought  and  speech 
been  possible  for  all  souls,  both  great  and 
small.  And,  though  in  all  ages  there  have 
been  those  whose  sensitive  hearing  caught  the 
prophesying  voices  about  them  and  recognised 
their  signification,  in  no  age  before  our  own 
have  these  voices  been  so  assured  of  finding, 
on  every  side,  ears  to  hear.  The  enormous 
increase  of  general  information,  and  the  free 
discussion  of  all  matters  ethical  and  religious, 
have   led   to   their   inevitable   result,   and  the 


The  New  Voices  3 

whole  reading  and  thinking  world  is  aware 
that  the  last  half-century  has  brought  about 
changes  in  religious  thought  bewildering  in 
their  rapidity  and  extent. 

Is  it  really  less  than  a  hundred  years  since 
the  left  wing  of  the  Christian  Church,  itself  but 
grudgingly  accorded  the  Christian  name,  cast 
forth  Theodore  Parker  for  his  assertion  that 
the  value  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  did  not 
stand  or  fall  with  the  credibility  of  its  miracu- 
lous elements  ?  It  is  a  far  cry,  indeed,  from 
those  days  to  the  days  when  it  is  the  Dean 
of  the  Faculty  of  Protestant  Theology  in 
the  University  of  Paris  who  observes  :  "  The 
most  conservative  apologists  of  the  traditional 
school  confess  to-day  that  miracle  has  lost  its 
evidential  force  "  ^ ;  and  when  It  Is  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Church  History  In  the  University  of 
Berlin  who  declares, 

"  Miracles  do  not  happen,"  and  *'  He  who  uttered  the 
words,  *  Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders  ye  will  not 
believe,'  cannot  have  held  that  belief  in  the  signs  and 
wonders  which  he  wrought  was  the  right  or  only  avenue 

'  Auguste  Sabatier:  The  Religions  of  Authority  and  the  Religion 
of  the  Spirit. 


4  The  Religion  of  Christ 

to  the  recognition  of  his  person  and  his  mission.  .  .  . 
The  question  of  miracles  is  of  relative  indifference  in 
comparison  with  everything  else  which  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Gospel.     It  is  not  miracles  that  matter."  ' 

And  what  has  become  of  the  once  famiHar 
conflict  between  Religion  and  Science  ?  Hux- 
ley's encounter  with  the  Bishop  reads  like  an- 
cient history.  The  ranks  of  the  combatants 
**are  breaking  like  thin  clouds  before  a  Biscay 
gale,"  and  many  of  these  combatants  appear 
to  have  possessed  themselves  of  their  oppo- 
nents' banners,  and  to  be  shouting  their  op- 
ponents' rallying  cries.  Here  one  beholds 
a  company  in  orthodox  array  apparently  lead- 
ing the  attack  on  tradition  ;  there,  above  the 
heads  of  a  group  of  free-thinkers,  waves  a 
banner  singularly  like  one  formerly  in  the 
hands  of  the  apologists  for  religion.  We  turn 
from  Professor  Harnack's  What  is  Christ- 
ianity ?  or  Sabatier's  Religions  of  Authority 
and  the  Religion  of  the  Spirit,  to  KIdd's  Social 
Evolution  or  James's  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,  and  wonder  where  the  conflict  is. 

'  Adolf  Harnack;    What  is  Christianity  ? — Lecture  II. 


The  New  Voices  5 

If  we  want  the  old  uncompromising  defence 
of  rehgion  against  science  we  must  look — 
heaven  save  the  mark  ! — to  W.  H.  Mallock, — 
to  some  such  book  as  his  Religion  as  a  Credi- 
ble Doctrine. 

The  truth  is  that  we  have  all  had  to  move 
on.  The  leaders  of  thought  have  been  shift- 
ing their  ground  and  taking  up  new  positions, 
and  the  rest  of  us,  willingly  or  unwillingly, 
have  had  to  follow.  And  it  looks  as  if  we 
should  have  to  keep  on  following.  For  the 
changes  are  mainly  due  to  increased  informa- 
tion, and  information  continues  to  pour  in  on 
every  side.  The  deafness  of  our  ignorance  is 
being  cured  whether  we  will  or  no  ;  and,  with 
whatever  emotions  we  listen,  listen  we  must. 

That  the  emotions  should  vary  greatly  is  in- 
evitable. When  the  Israelites  before  Jericho 
heard  the  trumpet-blast,  they  shouted  with  a 
great  shout,  for  to  them  it  was  the  trumpet  of 
the  Lord.  But  a  woeful  sound  that  trumpet- 
call  must  have  been  to  those  who  had  sought 
shelter  within  the  swaying  walls.  Even  so, 
as  the  walls  of  the  theological  Jericho   sway 


6  The  Religion  of  Christ 

beneath  the  stress  of  the  new  voices,  those 
within  the  citadel  must  needs  hear  with  dismay. 
And  not  they  alone.  There  are  many  thoughtful 
men  and  women  to-day  who,  while  not  greatly 
concerned  for  the  dogmatic  ramparts  them- 
selves, are  yet  troubled  in  heart  as  they  behold 
their  disintegration.  Touched  by  the  mood  of 
Dover  Beach,  they  can  hear  only  "  the  mel- 
ancholy long-withdrawing  roar  "  of  the  sea  of 
faith.  They  are  fearful  lest  the  passing  of 
Christian  dogmatism  may  mean  also  the  pass- 
ing of  the  Christian  religion  ;  lest  Christianity 
may  have  '*  forfeited  its  privilege  to  be  an  eter- 
nal religion "  by  *'  entangling  itself  with  a 
particular  account  of  matters  of  fact,  matters 
irrelevant  to  its  ideal  siornification." '  Such 
hearers  listen  and  fear.  Others,  again,  listen 
and  rejoice,  believing  that  it  is  the  "  Re- 
ligion of  the  Spirit,"  and  not  irreligion  which 
is  breaking  down  the  "  Religions  of  Authority"  ; 
and  holding  that  "  if,  as  every  educated  per- 
son now  thinks,  there  is  a  considerable  human 
element  in  all  doctrine,  and  the  light  of  the 

'  George  Santayana:   Poetry  and  Religion,  chap.  iv. 


The  New  Voices  7 

idea  shines  through  an  earthly  setting,  it  is  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  study  the  human 
conditions  which  lay  around  the  cradle  of  the 
faith,"  ^  for  the  very  purpose  of  saving  Christ- 
ianity by  thus  rtf?>entangling  it  from  "  matters 
irrelevant  to  its  ideal  signification." 

But,  whether  we  listen  sorrowfully,  or 
whether  we  listen  gladly,  still  we  must  listen. 
The  very  newspapers  force  the  voices  upon 
our  attention.  He  must  run  fast,  indeed,  for 
instance,  who  misses  the  signification  of  the 
news  from  the  Scotch  churches.  Whether  or 
not  we  ''  find  in  this  cruel  blow  which  has  stag- 
gered the  Free  Church,  the  punishment  that, 
sooner  or  later,  visits  those  who  do  not  man- 
fully speak  out  their  minds,  but  are  content  to  go 
on  seeming  to  be  bound  by  an  outworn  creed  "  ~ ; 
whether  or  not  we  think  this,  of  one  thing  we 
may  rest  assured, — that  the  legal  decision  in 
favour  of  the  heroic  remnant,  steadfast  to  the 
old  covenant,  is  proving  more  hostile  to  tradi- 
tion than  volumes  of  skeptical  attack,  declaring, 

'  Percy  Gardner:  Exploratio  Evangclica. 

'^Augustine  Birrell:   "Sad  Case  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland," 
Independent  Review, 


8  The  Religion  of  Christ 

as  it  does,  that  this  old  covenant  is  a  cove- 
nant unto  death,  pointing,  as  it  does,  to  the 
need  of  a  new  covenant,  not  of  the  letter, 
but  of  the  spirit ;  ''  written  not  with  ink,  but 
with  the  spirit  of  the  living  God  ;  not  in  tables 
of  stone,  but  in  tables  that  are  hearts  of  flesh."  ^ 
One  is  tempted  to  continue  with  the 
Apostle  : 

**  Having  therefore  such  a  hope,  we  use  great  bold- 
ness of  speech,  and  are  not  as  Moses,  who  put  a  veil 
upon  his  face,  that  the  children  of  Israel  should  not  look 
steadfastly  on  the  end  of  that  which  was  passing  away: 
but  their  minds  were  hardened:  for  until  this  very  day 
at  the  reading  of  the  old  covenant  the  same  veil  re- 
maineth  unlifted  ;  which  veil  is  done  away  in  Christ. 
But  unto  this  day  whensoever  Moses  is  read,  a  veil  lieth 
upon  their  heart.  But  whensoever  it  shall  turn  to  the 
Lord,  the  veil  is  taken  away.  Now  the  Lord  is  the 
Spirit:  and  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is 
liberty." 

The  liberty  of  the  twentieth  century  may 
find  in  these  familiar  words  a  new  meaning. 
Is  it  true  that  the  veil  which  has  been  put 
upon  the  things  which  to-day  are  passing 
away  is  done  away  in  Christ  ?  Is  the  /?ye  still 
the  light  of  men  ? 

^  2  Cor.,  chap.  iii. 


The  New  Voices  9 

For  it  would  seem  to  be  more  and  more  a 
question  of  the  life.  It  would  seem  as  if 
Christianity  were  losing  the  protection  of  dog- 
matic metaphysics  and  must  live,  if  it  live  at 
all,  by  the  help  of  no  extraneous  supports,  but 
by  its  own  inherent  vitality ;  must  endure,  if 
it  endure  at  all,  as  a  religion  not  proved  true 
by  theological  argument,  but  proving  itself 
true  in  the  lives  of  individuals  and  of  nations. 
Neither  eighteenth  -  century  skepticism  nor 
nineteenth  -  century  scientific  research  was, 
in  truth,  as  profoundly  hostile  to  dogmat- 
ism, to  intellectualism  in  religion,  as  is  that 
hunger  of  the  spirit  which  in  this  new  century 
is  revealing  itself  in  a  hundred  ways,  ways 
often  as  apparently  antagonistic  as  the  irony 
of  the  free-thinker  and  the  preaching  of  the 
revivalist.  It  is  a  hunger  which  will  not  be 
satisfied  with  husks  ;  hence  the  growing  de- 
mand for  reality  and  not  a  sham,  for  bread 
and  not  a  stone,  for  a  livinof  reliction  and  not  a 
dying  theology.  No  intellectual  creed,  how- 
ever well-mortised,  no  dream,  however  beauti- 
ful, can  meet  this  demand  ;  it  can  be  met  only 


lo  The  Religion  of  Christ 

by  a  religion  based  on  human  experience  and 
living  with  the  truth  of  human  life. 

Is  Christianity  capable  of  meeting  this  new 
demand  as  it  has  met  like  demands  in  the 
past  ?  The  Christianity  that  we  know  is  com- 
posed of  many  and  diverse  elements,  and 
certain  of  these  elements,  important  in  the 
past,  are  apparently  passing  away  ;  does  it  con- 
tain other  elements  which  are  enduring,  and 
which  are  destined  to  reassert  themselves,  with 
greater  power  than  ever  before,  in  a  religion 
of  practical  value  to  struggling,  suffering, 
hoping  humanity  ?  It  is  a  question  for  the 
coming  years  to  decide,  but  we  may  take  heart 
in  one  thought ;  that,  whatever  ethical  and 
religious  changes  this  century  holds  in  its  dim 
reaches,  any  possible  revival  of  Christianity 
will  not  be  obliged  to  formulate  its  creed,  as 
earlier  creeds  were  formulated,  to  protect  a 
nascent  church  struggling  to  maintain  a  foot- 
hold against  the  assaults  of  alien  metaphysics 
without  and  unruly  sectaries  within, — intellect- 
ual compromises  demanded  as  the  very  price 
of  existence.     A    new  creed    must    meet   de- 


The  New  Voices  1 1 

mands  no  less  insistent,  but  demands  of  the 
soul  rather  than  of  the  intellect.  It  must  be  a 
creed  not  to  reason  about  in  councils,  but  to 
live  by  in  the  home  ;  a  creed  to  be  justified, 
not  by  logic,  but  by  life  ;  not  by  argument,  but 
by  experience.  Would  such  a  creed  be  a  new 
creed  after  all  ?  Might  it  not  prove  to  be  a 
creed  older  than  the  Athanasian,  older  than 
the  Nicene,  older  even  than  the  Apostles*  ? 

''And  one  of  the  scribes  came  and  heard  them  ques- 
tioning together  and  knowing  that  he  had  answered 
them  well,  asked  him,  What  commandment  is  the  first 
of  all  ?  Jesus  answered,  The  first  is.  Hear,  O  Israel; 
The  Lord  our  God,  the  Lord,  is  one:  and  thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength. 
The  second  is  this.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself.  There  is  none  other  commandment  greater 
than  these." ' 

The  Jewish  scribe  to  whom  Jesus  gave  this 
"  rule  of  faith  "  was  disarmed  by  it.  Has  it 
lost  its  power  through  the  labours  of  Christ- 
ian scribes  ?  Dean  Stanley  has  some  plain 
words  in  this  connection. 

•  Mark  xii.,  28-31. 


12  The  Religion  of  Christ 

"  To  erect  hedges  round  the  gospel  has  been  the  effort 
— happily  not  continuous  or  uniform  but  of  large  and 
dominant  sections  of  the  Scribes  of  Christianity — until 
the  words  of  its  Founder  have  well-nigh  disappeared 
behind  the  successive  entrenchments  and  fences  and 
outposts  and  counterworks  of  Councils  and  Synods  and 
Popes  and  Antipopes,  and  Sums  of  Theology  and  Sav- 
ing Doctrine,  of  Confessions  of  Faith  and  Schemes  of 
Salvation,  and  the  world  has  again  and  again  sighed  for 
one  who  would  speak  with  the  authority  of  self-evi- 
dencing truth  and  not  as  the  Scribes."  * 

The  authority  of  self -evidencing  truth — that 
is  what  the  twentieth  century  wants.  And 
it  may  well  be  that,  as  the  obstructions  fash- 
ioned by  the  scribes  melt  away  in  the  breath 
of  that  scientific  spirit  which  cares  only  for 
such  truth, — for  the  truth  of  experience, — we 
shall  hear  with  increasing  clearness  the  voice 
of  him  who  spoke  with  this  authority. 

And  if  this  prove  so,  shall  we  again  fulfil 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  and,  hearing,  in  no 
wise  understand  ?  I  have  a  better  faith  in  the 
process  of  the  suns.  There  is  a  little  para- 
ble in  Mark — Mark  is  not  rich  in  parables, 
but  this  one  is  its  peculiar   treasure — which, 

'  The  Jewish  Church,  vol.  iii.,  p.  i66. 


The  New  Voices  13 

though  very  simple,  is  still,  after  nineteen  cent- 
uries, revealing  to  the  Christian  world  its 
profound  meaning. 

**And  he  said,  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  if  a  man 
should  cast  seed  upon  the  earth;  and  should  sleep  and 
rise  night  and  day,  and  the  seed  should  spring  up  and 
grow  he  knoweth  not  how.  The  earth  beareth  fruit  of 
herself;  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn 
in  the  ear.  But  when  the  fruit  is  ripe,  straightway  he 
putteth  forth  the  sickle,  because  the  harvest  is  come."  * 

If  the  seed  sown  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  has  in  truth  sprung  up  and  grown,  we 
know  not  how,  through  humanity's  sleeping 
and  waking  hours,  until  now  the  husks,  and 
the  husks  alone,  are  falling  from  the  ripened 
fruit,  then  every  honest  attempt,  however 
humble,  to  distinguish  between  husk  and  fruit 
becomes  worth  while. 

This  is  my  only  excuse  for  this  little  book. 
A  poor  enough  excuse  it  may  seem  for  a  book, 
however  little,  which,  in  the  present  prodigal- 
ity of  '*  new  thought,"  makes  no  pretence  to 
offer  any  new  thought  whatever  ;  which,  on  the 
contrary,  owes  its  existence  to  the  conviction 

'  Mark  iv.,  26-29. 


14  The  Religion  of  Christ 

that  It  Is  not  a  new  thought  that  we  need, 
but  a  very  old  one  ;  a  thought  not  hidden  from 
us  nor  far  off,  that  we  should  say,  who  shall  go 
over  the  sea  or  up  to  heaven  for  us,  to  bring 
It  to  us,  but  a  thought  very  nigh  unto  us,  In  our 
mouth,  and  In  our  heart,  that  we  may  do  It ! 

That  we  may  do  it.  Not  talk  about  It,  but 
do  It.  Not  accept  It  with  our  lips,  but  test  it 
with  our  lives. 

*'  We  live  in  an  age  of  theories,"  says  Dr.  Bigg  in  the 
valuable  and  delightful  little  introduction  to  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine;  "  we  live  in  an 
age  of  theories  which  come  and  go,  ending  in  mere 
denials  and  divisions.  Unity  will  cease  to  be  no 
more  than  a  golden  dream  in  proportion  as  man  comes 
to  see  in  theory  a  thing  to  be  worked  out,  to  be  applied 
thoroughly  and  consistently  to  the  facts  of  life.  If  you 
believe  a  thing,  Materialism,  Socialism,  whatever  it  may 
be,  go  and  do  it;  preach  it  and  act  it  without  scruple 
and  without  compromise.  Do  not  wait  for  others  or 
serve  the  times.  If  your  theory  will  not  work,  note  care- 
fully the  point  where  it  breaks  down,  cast  it  away  at 
once,  and  try  another.  There  is  no  truth  for  him  that 
is  not  true  to  himself." 

There  Is  much  In  those  few  sentences  worth 
pondering  upon  by  twentieth-century  Chrlst- 
alns.     They    are  the  plain   expression  of   the 


The  New  Voices  15 

working  of  the  modern  scientific  spirit  in  the 
domain  of  reHgion.  Yet  Doctor  Bigg  can 
add,  and  add  truly,  ''  Perhaps  this  may  be 
called  the  final  lesson  of  the  Confessions,  and 
indeed  of  all  Christian  experience."  There  is 
no  truth  for  him  who  is  not  true  to  himself 
St.  Augustine  believed  that  with  all  his  heart. 
So,  too,  did  Thomas  Huxley.  Both  these 
men  saw  in  theory  ''  a  thing  to  be  worked  out, 
to  be  applied  thoroughly  and  consistently  to 
the  facts  of  life,"  and,  as  Doctor  Bigg  points 
out,  all  hope  of  unity  depends  upon  the  degree 
in  which  the  mass  of  us  are  able  to  follow 
the  method  of  these  clear  and  sincere  minds, 
and  in  our  thinking,  to  get  back  to  the  facts 
of  life,  and  to  be  faithful  to  them.  Christ- 
endom is  very  conscious  to-day  of  its  lack  of 
religious  unity,  and  much  is  said  of  the  need 
of  maintaining  and  setting  forward,  as  much 
as  lieth  in  us,  quietness,  peace,  and  love  among 
all  Christian  people.  And,  among  the  signs 
of  this  time,  there  are  many  which  suggest 
that  there  is  a  more  reasonable  hope  than  has 
ever  existed  before  that  this  golden  dream  of 


i6  The  Religion  of  Christ 

unity,  of  essential  unity,  may  be  in  some  meas- 
ure realised.  For  surely  it  is  no  dream  that 
the  old  fierce  sectarianism  is  dying  out ;  the 
sectarianism  which  made  each  one  of  us  pri- 
marily a  member  of  a  Christian  sect,  and 
secondarily  a  Christian  ;  surely  It  is  no  dream 
that  the  many  partition  walls  in  the  Christian 
temple  are  wearing  somewhat  thinner.  Such 
a  circumstance  as  the  peaceable  passing  over 
of  the  Brookfield  church,  as  a  church,  from 
one  form  of  Christian  worship  to  another  is 
not  without  signification,  and  there  are  many 
minor  signs  of  a  like  nature  that  there  is  a 
growing  tendency  to  transfer  the  emphasis 
from  that  which  separates  the  sects  to  that 
which  unites  them.  We  are  apparently  learn- 
ing at  last  that  the  only  form  of  religious 
unity  possible  or  desirable  is  one  based  on  the 
recognition  that  there  are  in  all  forms  of  re- 
ligion elements  essential  and  elements  non- 
essential, and  that  if  we  could  but  agree  upon 
the  essential,  we  need  not  greatly  concern  our- 
selves about  the  non-essential. 

If  we  could  but  agree  upon  the  essential — 


The  New  Voices  17 

there,  of  course,  is  the  rub.  Yet,  again,  there 
are  signs  of  the  time  which  suggest  that  some 
such  agreement  is  not  quite  so  far  out  of 
reach,  not  quite  such  a  ''golden  dream,"  as  it 
has  seemed  to  be  in  past  years.  Negatively, 
if  not  positively,  a  Christian  theory  is  being 
worked  out,  based,  not  on  the  authority  of 
special  revelation,  but  on  the  facts  of  life,  and 
in  such  a  working  out  lies,  to  go  back  to 
Doctor  Bigg,  the  only  sure  hope  of  ultimate 
Christian  unity.  Consider,  for  example,  the 
signification  of  the  correspondence  carried  on 
about  a  year  ago  in  the  columns  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph  and  since  republished — in  part — In 
book  form,  under  the  title.  Do  We  Believe  ? 

The  original  letter  which  gave  rise  to  the 
correspondence  was  published  not  long  before 
the  opening  of  the  Church  Congress  of  1904, 
and  is  addressed  to  that  large  company  whose 
Christianity — whose  ''belief" — Is  assumed  by 
such  a  congress.  "  But,"  the  writer  asks,  "  do 
we  believe  ?  and  if  so,  what  ?  Are  we  all  Christ- 
ians, and,  if  so,  in  what  sense  of  that  ambiguous 
term  ? "      There  was  an  Interesting  review  of 


i8  The  Relieion  of  Christ 


t>^ 


this  book  in  the  Spectator  for  March  25,  1905, 
a  review  which  amounted  to  a  summing  up  of 
the  resuhs  of  this  extensive  correspondence. 
After  disposing  of  "what  may  be  called  for 
convenience  the  unintellectual  letters — those, 
that  is  to  say,  whose  writers  show  little  cultiva- 
tion and  little  familiarity  with  what  has  been 
said  by  the  educated,  on  both  sides  of  the 
matter  at  issue,"  the  reviewer  goes  to  consider 
the  *' writings  of  reasonable  men." 

"  Few,"  he  observes,  "  even  among  those  who  profess 
faith  could  successfully  pass  what  we  might  call  an  Early- 
Victorian  test  of  orthodoxy.  Faith  is  generally  taken 
to  mean  confidence  in  God  as  He  was  revealed  in  Christ, 
and  the  essential  difference  between  belief  and  know- 
ledge is  seldom  forgotten.  Almost  all  admit  tacitly  or 
explicitly  that  unless  the  Church  will  comprehend  those 
believers  whose  creeds  are  shorter  than  any  formulary  of 
any  Christian  sect,  her  numbers  will  be  woefully  small. 
The  following  extract  from  one  of  the  letters  expresses 
roughly  the  religious  position  of  very  many  writers: — '  I 
believe  in  one  God  only,  who  is  to  me  a  friend,  long- 
suffering  and  of  great  kindness.  .  .  .  For  forms  and 
creeds  I  care  not  one  jot.'  That  such  a  God  was  re- 
vealed by  Christ  and  by  him  alone  is  regarded  as  cer- 
tain, and  the  letter  throws  a  curious  sidelight  upon  those 
somewhat  puzzling  words  of  our  Lord:  *  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father,  but  by  me.'     . 


The  New  Voices  19 

"  Taking  the  letters  as  a  whole  what  is  to  be  gathered 
from  them  ?  Let  us  imagine  that  we  have  no  means  of 
judging  of  the  present  religious  position  of  England  but 
that  afforded  us  by  the  correspondence  we  have  been 
reading.  Three  points  strike  us  as  we  lay  down  the  book, 
— that  among  the  thoughtful,  Christian  morals  are  not 
theoretically  questioned,  tliat  belief  in  dogma  is  very 
much  shaken,  and  that  atheism  is  dying  or  dead." 

Mark  that  last.  That  atheism  is  dying  or 
dead,  that  beHef  in  dogma  is  very  much  shaken, 
but  that  "  among  the  thoughtful,  Christian 
morals  are  not  theoretically  questioned."  In 
this  conclusion  we  find  the  suofSfestion  of  a 
possible  basis  of  agreement  among  Christian 
people,  a  suggestion,  that  is,  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  essential  and  non-essential  elements  in 
Christianity.  And,  at  this  point,  we  find  our- 
selves carried  back  from  England  in  the  twen- 
tieth century  to  Germany  in  the  eighteenth, 
for  much  the  same  suggestion  is  offered  by 
Lessing's  paradox,  "  The  Christian  Religion 
has  been  tried  for  eighteen  centuries,  and  the 
Religion  of  Christ  remains  to  be  tried,"  only 
that  Lessing's  words  further  suggest,  by  im- 
plication, that  it  may  be  at  least  partially  due 


20  The  Religion  of  Christ 

to  preoccupation  with  the  non-essential  ele- 
ments that  greater  emphasis  has  not  hitherto 
been  thrown  upon  the  essential ;  and  that  this 
preoccupation  is  in  accordance  with  the  natural 
development  of  human  thought, — first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear.  This  point  of  view  is,  of  course,  familiar 
enough  nowadays,  but  just  because  it  is  so,  be- 
cause, as  a  point  of  view,  possible  and  desirable, 
it  is,  as  it  were,  on  trial  to-day, — such  words  as 
these  of  Lessing's  gain  an  added  significance 
and  would  seem  worth  the  consideration  of  all 
who  have  at  heart  the  hope  of  Christian  unity. 
This  is  why  I  would  call  renewed  attention 
to  them.  It  is  far  from  my  wish  to  argue  this 
point  or  that,  far  from  my  wish  to  argue  at  all. 
Arguments  as  to  the  nature  of  Christianity 
are  within  easy  reach  of  all  who  wish  for 
them.  Students  in  every  land  are  faithfully 
seeking  to  penetrate  the  obscurity  of  Christ- 
ian origins  ;  and  to  trace  freely  and  reverently 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity,  external  and 
internal.  If  one  is  in  need  of  evidence  in 
these  matters  he  need  only  hold  out  his  hand 


The  New  Voices  21 

for  books  in  which  such  evidence  is  carefully 
and  honestly  discussed  by  the  learned.  I, 
who  am  not  learned,  have  a  much  humbler 
object.  There  are  many  thoughtful  men  and 
women  to-day — or  so,  at  least,  it  seems  to  me 
— who  are  puzzled  by  the  new  voices,  and 
doubtful  of  their  signification ;  who  are  con- 
fused and  troubled  between  their  reverence  for 
truth  and  their  conviction  that  it  is  by  faith  we 
live.  In  sympathy  with  this  attitude  of  mind, 
I  seek  only  to  present,  as  simply  and  briefly  as 
possible,  the  point  of  view  suggested  by  Les- 
sing's  words.  I  do  not  assert — these  things  are 
so.     Rather  I  ask — are  not  these  things  so  ? 

Says  the  late  Auguste  Sabatier  in  the  intro- 
duction to  that  book  to  which  he  devoted  the 
last  months  of  his  life  : 

"  No  one  has  a  right  to  impose  a  doctrine  or  the 
presumption  surely  to  dictate  to  others  how  they  must 
direct  their  thought  ;  but  a  sincere  and  persuaded  mind 
may  tell  how  it  has  directed  its  own,  and  may  set  forth 
as  an  experience  and  a  document  the  views  at  which 
it  has  arrived." 

It  is  in  this  spirit,  and  in  this  spirit  alone,  that 
I  would   turn    back  to    Lessing's  words,  and 


2  2  The  Religion  of  Christ 

speak  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  the  Re- 
ligion of  Christ  as  the  one  and  the  other  ap- 
pears at  the  beginning  of  this  new  century,  to 
one  who  has  not  found  the  Religion  of  Christ 
the  exclusive  possession  of  any  of  the  numer- 
ous sects  professing  the  Christian  Religion. 

The  Christian  Religion, — When  we  speak 
the  famiHar  phrase  what  idea  does  it  call  up  ? 
I  should  answer  that  it  called  up  a  combina- 
tion of  several  ideas ;  the  idea  of  a  body  of 
doctrine  and  the  idea  of  an  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganisation, and,  as  an  adjunct  to  these,  the 
idea  of  a  way  of  life.  Whether  the  idea  of  a 
body  of  doctrine  comes  to  the  fore,  as  in 
Evangelicanism ;  or  whether  the  idea  of  an 
ecclesiastical  organisation  comes  to  the  fore, 
as  in  Sacramentalism  ;  the  idea  of  a  way  of 
life  remains  an  adjunct,  distinctly  not  the  one 
thing  necessary.  And,  yet,  if  I  understand 
Lessing  aright,  this  way  of  life  was  to  him 
the  Religion  of  Christ. 

Now,  where  a  phrase  calls  up  several  ideas 
at  once,  there  is  manifest  danger  of  vagueness 
in  its  use.     To  avoid  this  danger  as  far  as  pos- 


The  New  Voices  23 

sible,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  separately  the 
nature  of  the  Christian  body  of  doctrine  and 
the  nature  of  the  Christian  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganisation, in  their  relation  to  the  Christian 
way  of  life. 

Such  consideration  must  necessarily  be  slight 
and  inadequate,  since — let  me  say  it  once  more 
— I  am  speaking,  not  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  student,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  average  thinking  man  and  woman.  '*  Be 
it  indeed  that  I  have  erred,  mine  error  remaln- 
eth  with  myself."  But  I  am  encouraged  In 
the  attempt  to  speak  from  this  average  point 
of  view,  by  the  reflection  that,  after  all,  it  Is 
by  average  experience  and  average  Intelligence 
that  the  practical  value  of  any  point  of  view 
must  ultimately  be  tested. 


II 

DOGMA 

•'  O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  the  knowledge 
of  God  !  how  unsearchable  are  his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past 
tracing  out  !  For  who  hath  known  the  mind  of  the  Lord  ?  or  who 
hath  been  his  counsellor  ?  " — The  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans. 

P I RST,  then,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  Christ- 
ian body  of  doctrine,  of  Christian  dogma  ? 
How  did  it  come  to  be  ?  and  what  has  been, 
and  is,  its  relation  to  the  Christian  way  of 
Hfe? 

As  I  look  back  to  the  last  three  or  four  cent- 
uries of  Roman  dominion,  that  is,  to  the  first 
three  or  four  centuries  of  what  we  call  the 
Christian  era,  I  see  the  strangest  mental  ad- 
mixture which  history  has  ever  recorded.  I 
see  wholly  diverse  systems  of  thought  brought 
into  contact  by  the  cohesive  power  of  Roman 
civilisation  ;    I    see  the   state   religion   of  the 

Empire,    a   body   without   a  soul,   tolerating, 

24 


Dogma  25 

with  the  toleration  of  indifference,  rationalism 
on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  a  host  of 
fantastic  cults  crowding  into  the  Empire  from 
the  mysterious  East.  I  see  the  whole  lighted 
by  the  glory  —  though  a  fading  glory  —  of 
Greek  philosophy,  and  dominated  by  the 
Greek  habit  of  mind,  the  essentially  dogmatic 
habit ;  a  habit  of  mind  which  applied  the 
methods  of  logic  as  confidently  to  metaphysi- 
cal as  to  physical  matters.^  I  see  ignorance 
and  superstition  and  vice  ;  I  see  also  know- 
ledge and  earnestness  and  virtue ;  the  wildest 
debauchery  and  the  loftiest  renunciation  :  I 
see  the  human  spirit  restless,  eager,  dissatis- 
fied, forever  seeking  a  new  thing,  conscious 
that  the  life  has  passed  from  the  ancient  forms 
of  religion,  and  crying,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously— Who  shall  deliver  us  from  the  body 
of  this  death  ? 

I  see  these  things,  and  I  see,  scattered 
throughout  this  mighty  Empire, — so  solidly 
organised   in    material   things,  so   chaotic   in 

^  See  on  this  point  Edwin  Hatch's  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1888, 
The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and  Usages  upon  the  Christian  Chtirch; 
especially  Lect.  V,,  Christianity  and  Greek  Philosophy. 


26  The  Religion  of  Christ 

spirit,  —  the  so-called  Jewish  Dispersion; 
groups  of  men  and  women  drawn  from  an 
alien  nation,  a  nation  conquered  and  yet  un- 
conquerable, a  people  in  their  narrowness  and 
intolerance  and  strange  blending  of  bitter 
arrogance  and  servile  meanness  repellant  to 
the  pagan  world  ;  and  yet  a  people  profoundly 
attractive  to  this  same  world  in  their  genuine 
and  intense  religious  feeling,  in  their  unshak- 
able faith  in  one  only  God  ;  a  people  whose 
history  was  all  religious,  whose  literature  was 
all  sacred. 

And  I  see  In  the  midst  of  this  dispersed 
people,  and  extending  from  them,  a  living 
spiritual  principle  silently  taking  root,  a  living 
principle  because  it  was  actually  lived,  a  mus- 
tard seed  dropped  into  ground  torn  and  tossed 
by  the  Iron  ploughs  of  doubt,  discouragement, 
and  despair.  I  see  little  communities  appear- 
ing here  and  there,  containing  not  many  wise 
after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many 
noble  ;  communities  very  human  In  their  fail- 
ures and  dissensions,  but  held  together  by  the 
inward  power  of  this  new  principle  of  life,  by 


Dogma  27 

this  revelation  of  God  In  man.  I  see  the 
leaven  of  this  revelation  steadily  working  into 
the  surrounding  mass  until  these  small  and  de- 
spised communities  become  a  force  to  be 
reckoned  with  ;  until  contemptuous  indiffer- 
ence turns  into  no  less  contemptuous  disap- 
proval ;  until  the  State,  realising  that  this  is 
more  than  a  question  among  the  Jews  about 
words  and  names  and  their  own  law,  is,  at  last, 
minded  to  be  a  judge  in  these  matters  ^  and  to 
suppress  by  force  this  **  deadly  supersti- 
tion "  ^ — and  behold,  the  blood  of  the  martyrs 
waters  the  growing  plant. 

I  see  the  living  principle  expand  and 
strengthen  and  take  into  Itself  element  after 
element  from  the  world  about  it  until  at  length 
the  absorption  is  complete,  and  we  find — what  ? 
the  religion  of  Jesus  dominating  the  pagan 
world  ?  I  cannot  see  this.  What  I  see  is 
a  great  church,  Roman  in  body,  Greek  in 
spirit,  but  a  living  church,  because  at  its  heart 
endures  the  spiritual  principle  which  gave  life 
to  the  first  community  at  Jerusalem.     Gladly 

■Acts  xviii.,  14,  15.  'Tacitus. 


28  The  Religion  of  Christ 

do  I  recognise  this,  gladly  do  I  find  the  Christ- 
ian gospel  back  of  the  Christian  creed  ;  other- 
wise the  spectacle  of  the  Roman  Emperor  on 
his  low  golden  seat  at  the  Council  of  Nice 
would  be  a  disheartening  spectacle  indeed  ; 
otherwise  the  bitter  enmity,  the  personal 
hatred,  the  fierce  strife,  which  finally  wrought 
out  the  Christian  creed  established  by  this 
Council,  would  make  it  appear  but  a  mockery  of 
the  Religion  of  Christ ;  would  make  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  only  a  beautiful  un- 
reality, a  fading  dream. 

The  story  is  in  many  respects  what  Har- 
nack  calls  it,  a  ''  gruesome"  one,  but  all  the  mists 
of  controversy  about  the  symbols  of  faith  did 
not,  and  could  not,  extinguish  the  light  of  the 
faith  itself,  even  in  the  councils  of  the  Church ; 
and  looking  back  over  the  period  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  this  Church,  from  the  days  when  the 
little  band  of  disciples  continued  steadfastly 
with  one  accord  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem, 
praising  God,  and  awaiting  the  return  of  their 
Master,  to  the  days  when  Constantine,  a  son 
of  this  world  wise  for  his  own  generation,  ac- 


Dogma  29 

cepted  the  name  of  Christian,  I,  for  one,  do 
not  see  how  the  story  could  have  been  differ- 
ent. First,  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear.  The  principle  of  life  must 
animate  some  form,  the  kernel  must  have  a 
protecting  husk.  Those  who  had  seen  the 
revelation  itself  might  be  indifferent  to  intel- 
lectual statements  about  it,  but  the  loose 
communism  of  the  first  few  years  was  possible 
only  to  a  few  eager  souls,  rapt  away  from  the 
necessities  of  this  life  by  the  absorbing  ex- 
pectation of  another,  of  a  kingdom  of  heaven 
which  was  immediately  to  be  established. 

As  time  went  on,  organisation  became  a 
necessity,  and  the  struggle  for  existence  be- 
gan. Without  were  fightings,  within  were  fears. 
Gallantly  did  the  growing  Church  hold  its  own, 
but,  inevitably,  as  it  grew,  its  character  al- 
tered. It  could  live  only  by  assimilation,  and 
assimilation  means  compromise.  As  converted 
Jews  had  used  the  weapons  of  Jewish  thought 
— Paul,  of  course,  the  preeminent  Instance  of 
this  —  so,  later,  converted  pagans  used  the 
weapons  of  pagan  thought,  and  the  attacks  of 


30  The  Religion  of  Christ 

subtle  logic  without  were  met  by  the  defence 
of  subtle  logic  within.  At  every  turn  we  may 
see  what  Sabatier  calls  *'  the  revenge  of  the 
Greek  mind  upon   the   Apostolic  preaching." 

And  while  the  outside  world  was  thus  grad- 
ually conquered  by  assimilation,  a  ceaseless  in- 
ternal struggle  was  going  on.  The  Christian 
way  of  life  was  one,  the  Christian  ways  of 
thought  were  many.  One  after  another  these 
ways  were  advanced  and  debated  until,  by  the 
pressure  of  heresy  after  heresy,  that  way  of 
thought  was  moulded  which  was  finally  pro- 
nounced orthodox,  and  "  the  Church  no  longer 
disputed  with  heretics  ;  she  condemned  them." 

Then  there  befell  what  always  befalls  under 
like  circumstances.  As  soon  as  the  Church 
had  attained  a  position  of  authority,  she  met 
with  the  support  always  accorded  to  such  au- 
thority by  that  '*  old  and  almost  ineradicable 
tendency  of  mankind  to  rid  itself  of  its  free- 
dom and  responsibility  in  higher  things,  and  to 
subject  Itself  to  a  law."  ^  That  direct  personal 
relation  to  God  and    His  truth  which   is  the 

'  Adolf  Harnack  :    What  is  Christianity  ?     Lecture  vii. 


Doorma  31 


^5 


birthright  of  every  human  soul,  this  human 
soul  again  and  again  exchanges,  and  exchanges 
gladly,  for  the  comforting  pottage  of  mental 
quiet  and  freedom  from  responsibility.  It  is 
easier  to  repeat  a  creed  than  to  follow  after 
truth,  and  willingly  enough  did  the  laity  give 
the  keys  of  life  and  death  into  the  hands  of  a 
mediatorial  Church. 

Once  again, — the  more  I  observe  the  work- 
ing of  the  laws  in  accordance  with  which  the 
human  mind  acts,  and  the  more  I  study  the 
history  external  and  internal  of  the  early 
Christian  centuries,  the  more  impossible  it 
seems  to  me  that  Christianity  should  have  de- 
veloped on  any  other  lines  ;  and  though  I  can- 
not picture  to  myself  Jesus  of  Nazareth  at  the 
Council  of  Nice,  yet  I  find  nothing  strange  in 
the  spectacle  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the 
fourth  century  with  its  stiffening  organisation 
and  its  increasing  body  of  doctrine. 

A  wonderful  story  is  the  story  of  that 
Church  from  this  time  on  ;  with  its  gradual 
rise  to  imperial  power  and  to  the  mastery  of 
Europe  ;  a  story  of  intellectual  ability,  of  heroic 


32  The  Religion  of  Christ 

achievement,  of  passionate  devotion.  But  is  it 
the  story  of  the  poor  in  spirit  and  the  pure  in 
heart?  of  the  meek  and  the  peacemaker  ?  Is 
it  the  story  of  the  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness ?  Does  the  record  of  "  religious " 
controversies,  "religious"  persecutions,  "re- 
ligious" wars,  declare  with  Jesus  that  all  re- 
ligion is  comprised  in  the  love  of  God  and  man  ? 
Is  this  the  record  of  the  faith  that  worketh 
through  love  ?  What  is  it  that  all  these  states- 
men, lawyers,  soldiers,  doctors,  saints,  are  seek- 
ing to  make  prevail  ?  Is  it  that  kingdom  of 
God  which  cometh  not  with  observation  ?  or 
is  it  a  body  of  doctrine,  a  set  of  intellectual 
formulas  ? 

Let  each  student  of  Church  history  answer 
for  himself.  For  my  own  part,  though  I  find  in 
the  Christian  Religion  which  gradually  estab- 
lished itself  on  the  throne  of  the  Caesars  but 
little  outward  resemblance  to  the  Religion  of 
Christ,  I  believe  it  never  failed  to  hold  this 
religion  at  its  heart.  Beneath  the  war-cries  of 
Catholic  and  Arian  and  of  a  host  of  minor 
schisms, — one  may  count  a  round  hundred  of 


Dogma  33 

heresies  in  the  course  of  the  first  six  centuries, 
— beneath  the  vituperation  of  dissentient  saints 
and  schoolmen,  the  clash  of  arms  red  with  the 
blood  of  sectaries,  the  roar  of  flames  fed  on 
the  flesh  of  heretics,  the  groans  of  victims  to  the 
Holy  Ofiice, — beneath  all  these  may  be  heard 
a  still  small  voice ;  and  if  the  Lord  was  not  in 
the  wind  of  theological  dispute,  nor  in  the 
earthquake  of  theological  schism,  nor  in  the 
fire  of  theological  persecution.  He  was,  assur- 
edly, in  this  still  small  voice,  forever  whisper- 
ing to  the  soul  of  struggling  humanity  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  a  visible  kingdom,  but 
is  within  us  and  must  be  established,  if  it  be 
established  at  all,  not  by  might,  not  by  power, 
but  by  the  spirit  of  the  Lord.  Wind  and 
earthquake  and  fire  pass  away,  but  the  still 
small  voice  endures.  The  noise  of  past  theo- 
logical wrangling  dies  upon  indifferent  ears,  but 
so  long  as  men  and  women  suffer  and  love  and 
hope  will  they  keep  at  heart  the  words  of  the 
obscure  monk  who  believed  that  "  He  is  truly 
great  that  has  great  love,"  and  of  the  ''  poor 
little  one  "  to  whose  *'  great  love  "  the  very  sun 


34  The  Religion  of  Christ 

and  moon  were  as  brother  and  sister.  Here 
indeed  is  the  Religion  of  Christ,  Moreover, 
though  humanity  wisely  treasures  the  Imita- 
tion of  Christ,  and  the  Little  Flowers  of  St. 
Francis,  and  leaves  to  professed  theologians 
Anselm*s  Cur  Deus  Homo  ?  or  St.  Bernard's 
refutations  of  Abelard  ;  while  it  reads  with  en- 
during interest  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine 
and  is  hardly  conscious  that  he  wrote  volumes 
against  the  Manichaeans  and  the  Pelagians,  yet 
surely  the  record  of  theological  controversy 
is  in  itself  a  persistent  witness  to  the  greatness 
of  the  human  spirit.  *'  To  meddle  in  theo- 
logy," says  Jowett,  ''  requires  an  exceptionally 
happy  nature."  Naturally.  If  we  have  sought 
faithfully  to  imprison  in  words  "  the  depth  of 
the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  the  know- 
ledge of  God,"  and  believe  ourselves  suc- 
cessful in  this  attempt,  how  shall  we  avoid 
exasperation  with — to  use  the  words  of  one  of 
the  greatest  of  theologians — '*  that  so  great 
and  inveterate  disease  rooted  in  the  minds  of 
the  ignorant,  that  they  will  defend  their  irra- 
tional and  brutish  opinions  after  that  the  truth 


Dogma  35 

has  been  taught  them  as  plain  as  one  man  can 
teach  another  ?  "  ^ 

There  is  no  denying  the  oduivt  theologicum, 
but  no  one,  I  am  sure,  can  study  the  evolution 
of  Christian  dogma  without  being  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  inextinguishable  longing  of 
the  human  spirit  to  explain  to  itself  this  mys- 
terious universe,  and  to  obtain  some  firm  hold 
upon  abstract  truth  ;  with  its  eternal  dissatis- 
faction with  ignorance,  its  eternal  craving  for 
knowledge.  This  dissatisfaction  and  craving, 
this  wish  "  to  be  as  certain  of  things  unseen  as 
that  seven  and  three  are  ten"^  is  Hellenic, 
not  Hebraic — Job  was  the  one  great  Hebrew 
questioner  and  he  was  no  metaphysician, — but 
the  ideas  with  which  this  Greek  dogmatic 
spirit  concerned  itself  were  but  partially  Greek 
in  origin.  Mr.  Huxley  indeed  declares  that 
the  Christian  Religion  altogether  turned  its 
back  upon  the  Religion  of  Christ,  permitting  it 
to  die  out  on  Jewish  soil,  stigmatised  as  a 
heresy, — "  Nazarenism."  ^  I  cannot  see  this. 
It  is  true  that  the  primary  importance  which, 

'  Augustine  :   The  City  of  God.  -Augustine  :    Couftssions. 

^  Letter  to  Mr.  Taylor  in  Huxley's  Life  by  his  son,  vol.  ii.,  p.  243. 


36  The  Religion  of  Christ 

from  the  first,  Christianity  attached  to  ortho- 
dox beHef,  to  intellectual  salvation^  sufficiently 
testifies  to  its  Greek  training ;  it  is  true  that 
when  we  read  the  various  **  Statements  of 
Faith  "  which  the  Church  gradually  worked  out 
in  the  course  of  the  first  centuries  of  its  exist- 
ence, and  concerning  which  it  made  the  further 
statement,  "  This  is  the  Catholic  faith,  which 
except  a  man  believe  faithfully  he  cannot  be 
saved,"  we  feel  ourselves  at  a  point  of  view 
foreign  to  that  of  Jesus  when  he  declared  that 
the  one  thing  needful  was  not  to  say,  ''  Lord, 
Lord,"  but  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father. 
Nevertheless  the  central  fio^ure  of  these 
Statements  of  Faith,  of  these  dogmatic  pro- 
nouncements, was,  and  remained,  the  Christ, 
*'  Emmanuel — that  is,  God  with  us,"  and  the 
Church's  absorption  in  proving  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  God  did  not  prevent  its  careful 
preservation  of  the  records  of  his  human  life. 
And  thus,  through  centuries  of  ignorance  and 
brutality,  and  through  centuries  of  luxury  and 
corruption,  did  the  husk  protect  the  kernel, 
did  the  Christian  creed  enshrine  the  Christian 


Dogma  37 

gospel.  It  was  very  curious,  the  relation  of 
the  creed  and  the  gospel.  Nothing  in  the 
story  is  more  striking  than  the  apparent  con- 
trast between  the  ideal  and  the  real.  As 
"  Christian  "  Europe  emerges  into  the  growing 
light  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  it,  as  Mr. 
Bryce  has  told  us,  *'  ferocious  and  sensual, 
worshipping  humility  and  asceticism,"  combin- 
ing "  with  the  purest  ideal  of  love  the  grossest 
profligacy  of  life."  ^  And  still  the  ideal  en- 
dured ;  still  it  was  not  only  never  destroyed 
by  reality,  but  was  often  protected  by  it  in 
strange  and  sometimes  fantastic  ways,  as  in 
the  institution  of  chivalry  and  the  fierce  ardour 
of  the  Crusades.  But  as  the  humanising  light 
of  the  revival  of  learning  diffused  itself  over 
Europe,  men  began  to  perceive  this  singularly 
frank  divorce  between  theory  and  practice,  to 
perceive  It  and  to  seek  to  remedy  it.  Remon- 
strant voices  arose  here  and  there,  swelling 
at  length  into  the  Grand  Remonstrance  of 
the  Reformation.  It  is  true  that  the  Refor- 
mation,  for  all    its   good   intentions,   did   not 

'  James  Bryce  :  Holy  Roman  Empire. 


38  The  Religion  of  Christ 

apparently  succeed  in  bringing  the  Christ- 
ian life  into  much  closer  harmony  with  the 
Christian  ideal.  Mtinster  Anabaptists  were 
hardly  more  Christian  than  were  drunken 
monks,  and  Corporal  Grace-be-here  Humgud- 
geon  had  little  more  to  do  with  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  than  had  the  Bishop  of  St. 
Praxed's.  It  is  true  that  the  Reformation 
apparently  succeeded  in  merely  substituting 
one  dogmatic  theory  for  another,  and  not  in 
reconciling  theory  and  practice,  but,  in  spite  of 
appearances,  the  Reformation  was,  in  truth,  a 
step,  and  a  long  step,  toward  such  reconcile- 
ment. For  it  was  in  its  beginnings,  and  re- 
mained in  its  essence,  a  mighty  manifestation 
of  that  spirit  which  must  ultimately  refuse 
allegiance  to  any  theory  which  is  not  based 
on  fact ;  of  that  spirit  the  evolution  of  which 
began,  who  shall  say  when  ?  and  is  still  in 
process,  and  of  which  we  have  come  to  speak 
as  the  scientific  spirit.  The  scientific  spirit  is 
not  "-  the  spirit  that  denies,"  though  it  has 
frequently  borne  this  accusation  ;  but  it  affirms 
only  on   a  basis  of  fact.      It  does   not    deny 


Dogma  39 

revelation,  but  It  finds  revelation,  not  outside 
of  nature  but  In  It ;  and,  as  it  accepts  a  theory 
of   gravitation,   not  because    It   was   revealed 
once  and  for  all,  at  some  definite  moment  of 
this  world's  history,  but  because  it  is  revealed 
by  the  entire  physical  universe  ;  so  it  accepts 
a  theory  of  religion,  not  because  it  was  revealed  \ 
from  some  solitary  Sinai,  but  because  \X,  is  re-' 
vealed  in  human  life.    It  does  not  deny  the  need  ^ 
of  authority,  but  it  finds  this  authority,  not  In  an 
arbitrary    supernatural   pronouncement,    local  | 
and  temporary,  but  in  the   accumulated   ex-i 
perlence  of  mankind,   as  discovered  to  us  by 
history  and  psychology.     The  scientific  spirit 
is  the  spirit  that  seeks,  and  as  it  seeks  for  the 
truth  of  physical  law  through  the  correlation 
of  physical  fact,  so  It  seeks  for  the  truth  of 
spiritual  law  through  the  correlation  of  spir- 
itual fact.      It   has  no  disdain  of  theory ;  on 
the  contrary  its  object  is  to  create  theory  ;  but 
It  builds  all  hypotheses  upon  experience  and 
tests  then  by  experience,  and  thus  is  concerned 
with  the  abstract  only  through  the  concrete, 
with  the  ideal  only  through  the  real. 


40  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Whether  we  are,  or  are  not,  in  sympathy  with 
the  scientific  spirit,  we  shall  have  to  put  up 
with  it — for  the  present,  at  least.  For  the  evo- 
lution of  humanity  since  the  Dark  Ages  has 
been  coincident  with  the  evolution  of  this 
spirit.  As  it  lay  back  of  the  Renaissance  and 
the  Reformation,  of  the  skeptical  philosophis- 
ing of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  physi- 
cal discoveries  of  the  nineteenth,  so  it  lies 
back  of  the  present  demand  for  reality,  for 
theories  that  work,  for  a  religion  that  carries 
its  own  proof,  that  is  revealed,  not  outside  of 
nature,  but  in  nature.  And  always  and  every- 
where the  scientific  spirit  has  been  at  work 
modifying  and  changing  7/;^scientific  concep- 
tions both  material  and  spiritual,  and  is  still 
transforming  our  conception  of  dogma,  as  it 
has  transformed  our  conception  of  miracle,  by 
an  enlarging  and  deepening  process. 

Long  ago  Saint  Augustine  replied  to  those 
"who  denied  that  the  invisible  God  works 
visible  miracles  "  : 

"  Is  not  the  world  a  miracle  ?  Nay  all  the  miracles 
done   in   the  world   are  less  than   the  world  itself,  the 


Dogma  41 

heaven  and  earth  and  all  therein,  yet  God  made  them 
all  and  after  a  manner  that  men  cannot  conceive  nor 
comprehend.  For  though  these  visible  miracles  of  Na- 
ture be  now  no  more  admired,  yet  ponder  them  wisely 
and  they  are  more  admirable  than  the  strangest  :  for 
man  is  a  greater  miracle  than  all  that  he  can  work."  ^ 

The  scientific  spirit  has  but  emphasised  the 
truth  of  these  words  ;  and  as  the  conception  of 
the  miracle  of  the  universe  with  its  inviolable 
law  has  tended  to  obliterate  the  conception  of 
the  local  miracle  with  its  broken  law,  so  the 
spectacle  of  the  mind  of  man,  always  and 
everywhere  feeling  after  God  if  haply  it  may 
find  Him,  and  striving  to  express  its  thought 
of  God  in  words, — a  spectacle  unrolled  before 
us  by  the  scientific  spirit, — tends  to  obliterate 
the  conception  of  dogma  as  the  whole  truth  of 
God  imprisoned  in  a  definite  formula,  grow- 
ing out  of  special  and  limited  intellectual 
conditions. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  long  quarrel  be- 
tween those  who  defend  dogma  and  those 
who  attack  it  must  be  drawing  to  a  close  ;  as, 
on  the  one  hand,  an  increasing  number  of  those 

'  Augustine  :    The  City  of  God,  book  10,  chapter  xii. 


42  The  Religion  of  Christ 

who  defend  recognise  that  it  is  not  the  whole 
truth  of  God  which  they  are  defending,  but 
only  an  attempt  to  define  this  truth  condi- 
tioned by  time  and  place  ;  and  as,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  increasing  number  of  those 
who  attack  recognise  that  it  is  indeed  the 
truth  of  God  which  these  dogmas  attempt  to 
define.  The  most  metaphysical  of  dogmas 
must,  if  it  endure,  be  rooted  in  reality.  Take, 
for  example,  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  Fol- 
low, if  you  will,  the  evolution  of  this  dogma 
through  six  centuries  or  more  of  controversy. 
Observe  the  Greek  Christians  of  these  cent- 
uries struggling  to  reconcile  in  some  fashion 
the  worship  of  the  Christ  and  of  the  somewhat 
elusive  Paraclete,  with  the  determined  mono- 
theism of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  observe 
them  striving  to  at  once  satisfy  the  growing 
Christology,  and  to  withstand  that  paganising 
tendency  which  was  so  persistent  that  it  suc- 
ceeded, against  all  opposition,  in  substituting 
the  worship  of  the  saints  for  the  worship  of 
local  deities,  and  which  would  have  gladly 
accepted  three  distinct  gods  ;  observe  the  grad- 


Dogma  43 

ual  evolution  of  orthodox  belief  until  it  reaches 
its  final  expression  In  that  triumphant  psean  of 
metaphysical  subtlety,  the  so-called  Athanasian 
Creed. 

On  the  surface  it  is  not  always  an  edifying 
spectacle,  this  evolution.  It  is  not  pleasant  to 
read  ''the  torrents  of  abuse  which  one  saint 
poured  upon  another  because  the  one  assented 
to  the  speculations  of  the  majority,  and  the 
other  had  speculations  of  his  own, "^  but  I  do  not 
see  how  one  can  attentively  study  this  develop- 
ment without  perceiving  that  back  of  all  this 
wrangling  over  a  phrase,  a  word,  a  letter,  lay 
a  constant  effort  to  express  a  profound  spiritual 
truth;  the  truth  that  deity  finds  manifestation  in 
more  than  one  aspect ;  that  God  forever  speaks 
to  the  heart  of  man  through  His  Holy  Spirit, 
and  that  the  divine  sonship  was  indeed  revealed 
in  the  human  life  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 

And,  if  we  perceive  this  in  regard  to  purely 
metaphysical  dogma,  we  must  surely  perceive 
It  even  more  clearly  where  there  is  a  closer 
relation  between  the  Intellectual  statement  and 

'  Edwin  Hatch:  Hibbert  Lectures. 


44  The  Religion  of  Christ 

the  facts  of  life.  Take,  for  example  again,  a 
dogma  which  lies  very  close  to  the  Christian 
consciousness,  and  which  has  yet  proved  so 
difficult  of  adequate  expression  that,  though 
many  regard  it  as  *'  the  central  question  of 
Christianity,"  the  Church  has  hesitated  to  con- 
fer upon  it  a  final  form.  I  mean  the  dogma 
of  the  Atonement. 

Throughout  the  Christian  ages  theologi- 
ans have  laboured  to  evolve  some  definite 
theory  of  the  Atonement  which  should  fit 
smoothly  into  the  whole  theological  fabric, 
satisfying  at  once  the  demands  of  Christian 
logic  and  the  demands  of  Christian  moral- 
ity ;  and  the  story  of  the  changing  attitude 
of  theology  toward  this  **  central  "  question 
throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  development 
of  Christian  thought  In  general. 

It  Is  Impossible  to  trace  here  the  evolution 
which  changed  the  Atonement  from  a  ransom 
paid  to  Satan  (a  transaction  In  which  the  devil 
was  completely  "fooled"  by  God),  first  to  a 
ransom  paid  to  God,  and  then  to  **  an  equiva- 
lent satisfaction  "   to  Divine  Justice, — **an  ab- 


Dogma  45 

stract  fiction  created  by  logic  in  the  name  of 
human  penal  law,"  ^  and  still  the  orthodox  doc- 
trine of  the  Roman  Church.  It  is  impossible 
to  follow  in  detail  its  further  evolution  in 
Protestant  theology,  until  we  reach  the  mod- 
ern conception  of  the  Atonement,  as  a  moral 
process,  which,  unlike  earlier  conceptions, 
*'  commends  itself  to  our  conscience,"  a  moral 
process  by  which  man  is  brought  into  har- 
mony, into  at-one-ment,  with  the  divine  laws 
of  the  universe.  But  this  may  be  readily  ob- 
served,—  that  the  change  has  been  ''from  a 
legalist  to  an  ethical  conception."  In  the 
words  of  a  modern  theologian,  ''  The  dogma  of 
the  Atonement  has  only  to  be  traced  through 
its  successive  phases  to  see  a  progressive  moral 
evolution,"  an  evolution,  the  theologian  goes 
on  to  say,  ''  not  yet  finished,  since  its  still  gen- 
erally accepted  form  belongs  to  a  stage  of 
ethical  and  religious  culture  that  is  passing 
away  and  will  have  no  place  in  the  purer  and 
more  spiritual  religion  of  the  future." 

^  AugusteSabatier  ill  The  Atonement  in  Modern  Religious  Thought, 
an  interesting  and  significant  Theological  Symposium,  from  which,  in 
this  connection,  I  quote  repeatedly. 


46  The  Religion  of  Christ 

But  while  we  may  feel  that  this  is  all  true, 
and  while  we  may  be  ready  to  admit  that ''  the 
Atonement  as  a  dogma  rests  upon  other  dogmas 
that  are  fast  disappearing,"  that,  indeed,  these 
fading  dogmas  created  the  various  theories,  we 
must  surely  perceive  also  that  they  created 
them  only  in  the  sense  that  they  forced  into 
conformity  with  themselves  whatever  explana- 
tion was  attempted  of  CQrta.in/ac^s  of  human  life. 
The  special  theory  bears  indeed  **  the  impress  of 
its  age  and  often  of  its  region,"  but  the  vitality  of 
the  dogma  of  which  these  theories  were  so 
many  interpretations  has  been  due  surely,  not 
to  the  needs  of  empty  logic,  not  to  purely 
metaphysical  demands,  but  to  the  craving  of 
the  human  soul  for  some  sort  of  explanation  of 
its  own  spiritual  experiences.  So  long  as  men 
and  women  suffer  because  they  love,  will  human- 
ity ask  itself  for  some  solution  of  the  mystery 
of  redemption. 

We  may  have  done  with  ''  legal  fictions  "  ; 
we  may  shrink  back  horrified  before  the  picture 
of  an  angry  God  placated  by  an  innocent  vic- 
tim, or  of  a  helpless  God,  unable  to  forgive 


Dogma  47 

until  the  "  obstacle  of  sin  "  has  been  vicariously 
removed ;  we  may  be  learning  to  take  a  more 
inward  view;  to  perceive  that  "sin  is  not  an 
offence  committed,  but  an  attitude  of  mind," 
so  that  all  atonement  must  take  place  within 
us  and  not  without ;  and  that  true  sacrifice  is 
"  not  an  expiation,  but  a  spontaneous  mani- 
festation of  love  and  faith," —  that  it  is  mercy 
and  not  sacrifice  which  is  required  of  us  :  but 
still  it  remains  the  fact  of  history  that  **to  ac- 
complish good  among  men  and  women  means 
to  suffer  with  and  for  them  "  ;  that  "  the  world 
becomes  delivered  from  the  burden  of  its  sin 
and  misery  by  the  innocent  and  devoted  love 
of  those  who  charge  themselves  with  it "  :  and 
still  it  remains  the  fact  of  daily  experience  that 
sin  often  brings  its  keenest  suffering  to  the 
pure  in  heart,  and  that  '*  all  love  pays  a  ransom 
proportioned  to  its  intensity  and  devotion." 
And  since  these  things  are  so,  it  still  remains 
the  task  of  theology  to  offer  some  explanation 
of  these  facts,  that  she  may  reconcile,  not  God 
to  man,  as  the  Christian  Article  puts  it,  but 
man  to  God.     May  she  not  be  enabled  to  do 


48  The  Religion  of  Christ 

this  through  her  growing  perception  that  the 
moral  law  is  not  *'  an  instrument  of  punish- 
ment" but  *' a  means  of  spiritual  develop- 
ment "  ?  Certainly  she  need  not  despair  of 
her  task  so  long  as  she  can  oppose  to  the 
mystery  of  suffering  the  still  greater  mystery 
of  love. 

As  I  stand  before  Sargent's  representation 
of  the  Atonement  and  look  on  the  three  lifeless 
faces  of  the  Trinity,  impassive,  hard,  repellent, 
on  the  figure  of  the  dead  Christ,  with  its  sug- 
gestions of  physical  torture  and  defeat,  on  the 
dull,  unhopeful  human  faces  on  either  side,  I 
feel  that  not  all  its  decorative  beauty,  not  all  its 
splendour  of  line  and  colour  can  make  it  other 
than  the  dead  picture  of  a  dead  dogma.  Who 
will  paint  for  us,  not  the  dying  dogma  of  the 
Atonement,  but  the  living  idea  of  atonement, — 
of  the  redeeming  power  of  love?  Who  will 
paint  for  us  that  Christ  who  was  the  incarna- 
tion of  this  idea,  and  *'who  became  the  Re- 
deemer of  the  world  by  making  every  man  a 
Redeemer  "  ?  Looking  upon  such  a  picture  of 
atoning  love, — of  love  triumphant, — we  might 


Dogma  49 

come  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  thought 
which  found  expression  in  the  words — 

"  He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be 
satisfied." 

The  dogma  of  the  Atonement  is  passing,  but 
atonement  as  a  *'  fact  of  Hfe  "  remains  ;  and 
what  is  true  of  this  dogma  is  surely  true  of  the 
whole  body  of  Christian  doctrine.  "  The  spirit 
searches  all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things  of 
God,"  but  the  human  intellect,  dependent  upon 
narrow  and  superficial  logic,  in  vain  attempts  to 
give  permanent  form  to  the  truth  which  is  re- 
vealed to  the  spirit ;  and  the  outward  expres- 
sion must  decay  even  as  the  inward  meaning  is 
renewed. 

At  the  heart  of  every  dogmatic  statement  lies 
a  living  truth  which  it  has  striven  more  or  less 
successfully  to  express,  but  history  and  criticism 
are  revealing  more  and  more  plainly,  day  by 
day,  the  purely  human  origin  of  such  dogmatic 
statements  ;  and  by  so  doing  are  necessarily 
weakening  their  hold  upon  the  human  intelli- 
gence. What  is  of  far  more  moment, — for  no 
one  need  quarrel  with  dogma  except  in  so  far 


so  The  Religion  of  Christ 

as  its  acceptance  Is  made  obligatory, — they  are 
weakening  the  hold  of  such  statements  upon 
the  human  conscience.  Indeed  I  think  It  would 
be  generally  admitted  to-day,  that  the  present 
hold  of  dogma  Is  due,  not  so  much  to  Its  power 
to  satisfy  the  mind  and  heart  of  man,  as  to 
the  fact  that  It  has  become  "  entrenched  In  a 
creed,  which  Is  entrenched  In  an  eccleslastlcism 
which  again  Is  entrenched  In  the  love  and  ven- 
eration of  multitudes  of  men  and  women."  ^ 
These  words  of  Dr.  Hunger  tell  us  a  valuable 
truth  about  the  Christian  body  of  doctrine 
to-day ;  the  truth  that  it  Is  mainly  the  relation 
of  dogma  to  eccleslastlcism,  of  the  creed  to  the 
church,  which,  amid  the  disintegrating  forces 
at  present  at  work,  still  secures  to  this  body  of 
doctrine  the  protection  of  those  powerful  guardi- 
ans,— the  love  and  veneration  of  humanity. 

And  this  brings  us  to  ask  concerning  Christ- 
ian eccleslastlcism,  as  we  have  asked  concern- 
ing Christian  dogma,  What  Is  Its  nature  ? 
How  did  It  come  to  be  ?  And  what  Is  Its 
relation  to  the  Christian  way  of  life  ? 

^Theodore  Munger  in  The  Atonement  in  Mode7-n  Religious 
Thought. 


Ill 

ECCLESIASTICISM 

"  In  that  day  shall  a  man  look  unto  his  Maker,  and  his  eyes  shall 
have  respect  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  And  he  shall  not  look  to  the 
altars,  the  work  of  his  hands,  neither  shall  he  have  respect  to  that 
which  his  fingers  have  made." — T/ie  Prophet  Isaiah. 

r^OGMA  entrenched  in  creed,  and  creed  in 
^^  ecclesiasticism,  and  ecclesiasticism  in  the 
love  and  veneration  of  multitudes  of  men  and 
women.  How  is  a  creed  possible  without 
dogma  ?  and  how  is  a  church  possible  without 
a  creed  ?  and  how  is  religion  possible  with- 
out a  church  ?  Such  questions  as  these  are 
frequently  asked  to-day,  and  with  increasing 
anxiety,  by  many  of  those  who  perceive  that 
the  authority  of  dogma,  the  first  link  in  the 
chain,  is  being  steadily  weakened  by  the  action 
of  historical  research  and  criticism.  The 
anxiety  is  natural  enough,  especially  to  that 
large    portion    of   Christendom   to  whom   the 

51 


52  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Church  not  only  stands  for  religion,  but  Is 
religion,  so  that  labour  for  the  Church  means 
labour  for  religion,  faithfulness  to  the  Church 
means  faithfulness  to  religion,  love  of  the 
Church  means  love  of  religion.  To  most  of  us 
Indeed  the  phrase,  the  Christian  Religion,  calls 
up  no  more  surely  the  Idea  of  a  body  of  doc- 
trine than  it  calls  up  the  Idea  of  an  ecclesiasti- 
cal organisation.  History  has  much  to  teach 
us  concerning  the  Christian  body  of  doctrine  ; 
what  has  It  to  teach  us  concerning  the  Christian 
ecclesiastical  organisation  ? 

A  visible  church  must  be  bound  together  by 
some  degree  of  observance  as  well  as  by  some 
degree  of  conviction.  The  history  of  the  first 
three  centuries  a.d.,  shows  us  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  the  external  side  of  the  Christian 
Religion,  and  the  history  of  all  the  centuries 
since  shows  us  that  this  outward  bond  of  ob- 
servance is  far  more  to  be  counted  upon  for 
the  maintenance  of  a  firm  eccleslasticism  than 
Is  the  inward  bond  of  personal  conviction.  The 
Church  which  gradually  established  itself  in 
those  first  centuries  and  which,  throwing  an  In- 


Ecclesiasticism  53 

creasing  emphasis  on  ritual,  finally  declared 
that  salvation  lay  in  its  sacraments,  and,  by 
placing  the  administration  of  these  sacraments 
in  the  hands  of  a  consecrated  order,  drew  a 
hard  and  fast  line  between  clergy  and  laity  and 
constituted  itself  "the  instrument  of  salvation," 
is  still,  in  spite  of  the  serious  schisms  of  the 
ninth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  one  Church,  con- 
sistent and  powerful,  holding  in  its  communion 
some  two  hundred  and  forty  million  souls, 
nearly  half  the  Christians  in  the  world.  Where- 
as that  portion  of  this  Church  which  broke  away 
from  the  main  body  on  the  ground  of  personal 
conviction,  and  which  trusted  to  conviction  as 
its  main  bond  of  union,  has  continued  so  to 
break  up  within  its  own  lines  that  it  has  never 
been  able  to  present  a  solid  front.  It  is  ob- 
vious enough  why  this  should  be  so.  Plainly, 
observance  is  always  cohesive  in  its  effect, 
whereas  conviction  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  dis- 
integrating ;  plainly,  too,  it  Is  far  easier  for 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  control  outward  con- 
formity than  inward  opinion ;  but  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  chief  reason  why  ecclesiasticism 


54  The  Religion  of  Christ 

finds  in  observance  its  best  support,  Is  the  simple 
one  that  average  humanity  takes  very  kindly  to 
observance. 

Apart  from  the  general  human  tendency  to 
shirk  intellectual  responsibility,  it  is  undeni- 
ably easier  to  hold  fast  to  the  tangible  than  to 
the  intanorlble,  and  thence  arises  the  almost 
universal  dependence  upon  symbol  in  one  form 
or  another.  The  soul,  shut  up  in  a  body  of 
flesh  with  Its  eager  and  dominating  senses,  finds 
it  very  hard  to  keep  a  firm  hold  upon  the  Im- 
material, and  has  recourse  to  many  and  varied 
material  helps.  Among  the  ancient  religions 
the  Hebrew  stands  alone  In  Its  distrust  of 
symbol,  and  the  frank  love  of  symbol  which 
Christian  eccleslastlcism  showed  from  the  first 
was  not.  It  Is  needless  to  remark,  derived  from 
Palestine.  Everywhere  throughout  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  we  perceive  the  splrltually-mlnded 
struggling  to  counteract  the  materialising  ten- 
dency which  finds  satisfaction  in  ''the  sensible 
Image."  Everywhere  In  the  law  and  the 
prophets  we  find  the  realisation  of  this  tendency 
and  Its  uncompromising  condemnation.      Such 


Ecclesiasticism  55 

condemnation  speaks  in  the  legislation,  early 
and  late,  directed  against  the  making  of  any 
graven  image,  and  it  forms  the  permanent  text 
of  the  great  preachers. 

Law  after  law  was  directed  against  that 
obvious  idolatry  which  was  as  tempting  to  the 
chosen  people  as  to  their  neighbours  on  every 
side.  Again  and  again  does  the  Lord  say  unto 
Moses  :  "  Thus  thou  shalt  say  unto  the  children 
of  Israel.  Ye  have  seen  that  I  have  talked  with 
you  from  heaven.  Ye  shall  not  make  with  me 
gods  of  silver,  neither  shall  ye  make  unto  you 
gods  of  gold."  ^  Prophet  after  prophet  hurled 
denunciations  at  that  subtler  idolatry,  none 
the  less  real  and  far  more  dancrerous  because  it 
is  often  not  obvious  at  all,  which  substitutes 
outward  observance  for  inward  devotion  ;  the 
worship  of  the  symbol  for  the  worship  of  the 
thing  symbolised. 

"  To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices 
unto  me  ?  saith  the  Lord.  When  ye  come  to  appear  before 
me  who  hath  required  this  at  your  hand,  to  trample  my 
courts  ?    Bring  no  more  vain  oblations  ;  incense  is  an 

'Exodus  XX,,  22,  23. 


56  The  Religion  of  Christ 

abomination  unto  me;  new  moons  and  sabbaths, — the  call- 
ing of  assemblies, — I  cannot  away  with  iniquity  and  the 
solemn  meeting.  Your  new  moons  and  your  appointed 
feasts  my  soul  hateth:  they  are  a  trouble  unto  me;  I  am 
weary  to  bear  them.  .  .  .  Wash  you,  make  you  clean; 
put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes; 
cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well;  seek  judgment,  relieve 
the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow."^ 

The  Hebrew  identification  of  religion  and 
ethics ;  the  Hebrew  indifference  to  the  beauty 
of  art ;  and  the  Hebrew  conviction  that  the  re- 
lation between  the  soul  and  God  is  immediate 
and  requires  no  visible  mediation,  all  combined 
to  support  lawgiver  and  prophet  in  their  dis- 
trust of  symbol,  in  their  conviction  that  since 
God  is  a  spirit  the  true  worshippers  are  those 
that  worship  Him  in  spirit.  But  though  the 
more  obvious  forms  of  idolatry  were  finally 
and  effectually  stamped  out  in  Palestine,  It  was 
a  harder  matter  to  get  rid  of  the  subtler  forms 
of  externallsm.  The  beauty  and  richness  of 
Christian  ritual  was  in  origin  Greek  and  Ro- 
man, not  Jewish,  but  the  spirit  which  trusts  in 
outward  observance  was  by  no  means  absent 
from  the  Judaism  of  the  first  century. 

^Isaiah,  chap.  i. 


Ecclesiasticism  57 

This  spirit  had  always  maintained  its  hold 
in  the  Temple  worship,  indeed  some  enter- 
prising liturgist  had  not  scrupled  to  adapt  to 
Temple  usages,  by  means  of  an  additional 
stanza,  the  Fifty-first  Psalm  itself  ;  and  its  later 
manifestation  was  not  confined  to  the  priestly 
party,  the  Sadducees,  that  small  section  of  the 
nation  which,  rich,  aristocratic,  worldly,  kept 
on  excellent  terms  with  the  pagan  conquerors. 
It  was  to  be  met  with  everywhere  throughout 
that  Jewish  Church  of  which  Ezekiel,  in  his 
banishment,  was  the  real  founder,  throughout 
the  ranks  of  that  zealous  national  party — the 
Pharisees  ;  and  it  manifested  itself  in  that  sort 
of  externalism  which  delights  in  broad  phy- 
lacteries and  salutations  and  chief  seats ;  in 
prayers  and  alms  and  fastings,  "  to  be  seen  of 
men  ";  which  is  given  to  much  washing  of  cups 
and  pots  and  brazen  vessels,  to  careful  tithing 
of  mint  and  anise  and  cummin,  and  which  is 
exceedingly  faithful  to  tradition  and  to  the 
precepts  of  men. 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  these  outward 
observances  seems  to  have  been  at  one  with 


58  The  Religion  of  Christ 

the  attitude  of  the  prophets.  He  seems  to 
have  constantly  pointed  out  the  danger  inher- 
ent in  all  externalism,  in  the  use  of  all  forms 
of  symbol,  whether  material  or  intellectual,  the 
danger  of  transforming  a  means  into  an  end, 
of  resting  in  the  seen,  instead  of  reaching 
through  the  seen  to  the  unseen,  of  substitut- 
ing the  visible  image  for  the  invisible  idea,  the 
letter  for  the  spirit.  It  is  a  danger  obvious  to 
the  whole  Christian  world,  as  it  gazes  upon 
the  savage  prostrate  before  his  idol ;  a  danger 
obvious  to  a  section  of  the  Christian  world,  as 
it  gazes  at  the  remaining  portion  bending  be- 
fore Images  of  the  virgin  and  the  saints ;  a 
danger  obvious  to  a  section  of  that  section,  as 
It  gazes  upon  Its  remainder,  much  concerned 
with  crosses  and  candles  and  genuflections  ; 
and,  finally.  It  Is  a  danger  obvious  In  all  ''  ec- 
cleslastlclsm  "  to  that  minority  who  hold  with 
Sabatler  that, 

"  Paganism  and  idolatry,  of  which  we  pretend  to  have 
so  much  horror,  are  simply  the  localisation  and  material- 
isation, more  or  less  conscious,  of  the  divine  Spirit  and 
of  divine  Grace,  whatever  may  be  the  visible  organ  to 
which  you  bind  them,  Pope  of  Rome  or  Pythoness  of 


Ecclesiasticism  59 

Delphi,  images  of  gods  or  images  of  virgin  and  of  saints, 
sacramental  liturgies,  the  deification  of  a  church,  a  priest- 
hood, or  a  book." 

But  this  danger,  so  obvious  to  us  in  regard 
to  the  symbols  of  others,  is  inevitably  obscured 
in  regard  to  our  own  symbols  by  that  power 
of  association  which  gradually  invests  the 
symbol  with  the  sacredness  of  that  for  which 
it  stands.  The  sensible  image  tends  always 
to  substitute  itself  for  the  idea  which  it  repre- 
sents and  to  take  to  itself  the  devotion  which 
it  is  meant  to  lift  to  that  idea.  If  it  were  not 
so  we  should  not  find  It  so  hard  to  part  with 
symbols  which  have  ceased  to  be  representa- 
tive, but,  in  our  very  faithfulness  to  the  living 
spirit,  would  lay  aside  its  dead  body  without 
such  desperate  heartache.  So  long  as  human 
nature  is  human  nature,  It  will  love  the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  an  Inward  and  spirit- 
ual grace,  and,  so  loving,  will  be  tempted  to 
stay  itself  upon  this  outward  sign,  and  to  make 
of  It  a  thine  sacred  In  Itself.  And  nowhere  Is 
this  plain  truth  written  more  plainly  than  In 
the  history  of  Christian  ecclesiasticism. 


6o  The  Religion  of  Christ 

The  Christian  Church  has  been  especially 
rich  in  symbolism,  in  sensible  images, — is  itself 
symbol  raised  to  a  high  power, — but  few  will 
maintain  that  the  relation  between  this  wealth 
of  symbol  and  the  ideas  to  be  found  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the  Parables  of 
Jesus  is  a  relation  vital  and  immediate.  As 
we  stand  in  the  vast  basilica  and  hear,  float- 
ing through  clouds  of  incense,  the  tinkle  of 
the  silver  bell  announcing  the  elevation  of  the 
Host,  very  distant  seem  the  words,  "■  This  do 
in  remembrance  of  me."  And,  even  so,  the 
exceeding  simplicity  of  the  ideas  set  forth  in 
the  Sermon  and  in  the  Parables  would  seem 
to  be  a  main  reason  why  humanity  should 
have  found  it  so  difficult  not  to  lose  them  in 
the  very  form  which  was  supposed  to  enshrine 
them. 

The  Founder  of  Christianity  taught  a  way 
of  life,  a  way,  that  is,  of  living  in  a  cer- 
tain spirit,  and  ever  since  his  followers  have 
been  busy  in  trying  to  imprison  that  spirit  in 
some  sort  of  letter,  to  substitute  some  manner 
of  definite  observance  for  the  free  ideas  of  the 


Ecclesiasticism  6 1 

gospel.  They  have  indeed  shown  an  amazing 
ingenuity  in  this  direction.  The  variety  of 
substitutes  suggested  is  so  great  that  one  has 
to  look  close  to  recognise  back  of  them  all,  back, 
alike,  of  splendid  ritual  and  stern  asceticism, 
of  the  formalism  of  the  priest  and  the  formal- 
ism of  the  Quaker,  the  same  human  clinging  to 
the  letter,  the  same  human  fear  of  trusting  it- 
self to  be  upheld  by  the  free  spirit.  Yet,  as- 
suredly, all  these  phenomena  do  have  the  same 
root,  and,  as  we  consider  them,  we  see  every- 
where the  same  tendency  to  deify  the  letter 
which  has  been  substituted  for  the  spirit,  to  make 
of  it  a  thing  powerful  and  sacred  in  itself,  a 
thinor  sufficient  unto  salvation.  The  familiar 
spectacle  of  Louis  XI.  on  his  knees  before  his 
leaden  saints  is  but  a  vivid  and  picturesque  illus- 
tration of  much  of  the  Christianity  of  history. 
It  were  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  this, 
certainly  so  for  Protestant  readers.  The  only 
point  I  am  concerned  to  make  is  that  Louis  in 
his  religion  was  no  deliberate  hypocrite.  We 
call  his  devotion  superstition — a  convenient 
term — but  it  was  none  the  less  devotion,  and 


62  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Louis  was  in  his  own  eyes  a  most  Christian 
king.  So  easy  is  it  for  the  human  spirit  to 
substitute  the  sensible  image  for  the  spiritual 
reality,  to  juggle  successfully  with  its  finest 
aspirations.  A  scandalous  spectacle  is  Louis, 
but,  if  we  ponder  the  matter,  shall  we  be  so 
eager  to  cast  our  stones  at  his  *'  superstition  "  ? 
For  very  subtle  is  this  sin  of  the  soul.  We 
recognise  it  readily  when  we  hear  a  lie  from 
lips  which  have  but  just  kissed  a  crucifix  ;  when 
we  behold  a  rosary  laid  aside  that  the  hand 
which  held  it  may  be  free  to  take  what  is 
another's ;  but  we  are  slower  to  recognise 
the  sin  when,  in  the  very  doorway  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  we  obey  the  selfish  im- 
pulse, pass  the  harsh  judgment,  speak  the  un- 
kind and  contemptuous  word  ;  and  go  our  way, 
in  our  hand  a  book  of  devotion,  and  in  our 
heart  God  knows  what  pitiful  complacency. 

For  the  temptation  to  stay  the  soul  upon 
outward  things  is  none  the  less  real  because  it 
comes  to  spirits  the  most  fmely  touched  in  the 
form  of  an  angel  of  light ;  in  an  outward  de- 
votion full  of  charm  and  beauty,  declaring  that 


Ecclesiasticism  63 

true  worship  is  not  of  the  head  but  of  the 
heart.  Here,  indeed,  Hes  the  attraction  of 
ecclesiasticism  for  the  intelHgent  and  edu- 
cated classes — in  its  freedom  from  the  rigid 
limitations  of  "  intellectualism,"  in  its  appeal  to 
that  in  man  which  makes  his  reach  exceed  his 
grasp.  Here,  indeed,  the  Church  has  great 
allies — all  those  instinctive  beliefs  which  can 
never  find  adequate  expression  in  words,  all 
those  profound  convictions  which  can  never 
harden  into  docrma,  all  that  huncrer  and  thirst 
after  God  which  shrinks  from  formulated 
opinions  about  Him^ 

As,  grieved  and  wearied  with  the  burden  of 
our  sins,  we  kneel  in  the  great  church,  which, 
in  its  beauty  of  upspringing  column  and 
mighty  arch,  of  shadowed  light  and  softened 
colour,  is  itself  a  visible  symbol  of  an  invisible 
thought,  and,  so  kneeling,  listen  to  the  noble 
and  gracious  words  coming  to  us  from  the 
hearts  of  saints  and  heroes,  words  grown  ever 
dearer  through  their  association  with  all  the 
deepest  experiences  of  life,  we  feel  stealing 
into  our  hearts,  full  of  the  desire  of  those  that 


64  The  Religion  of  Christ 

are  sorrowful,  the  joy  and  strength  and  peace 
known  to  the  great  spirits,  whose  own  hearts, 
throughout  the  ages,  have  been  stayed  upon 
God.  In  our  daily  life  we  are  very  strenuous  of 
our  opinions, — heresy,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no 
whit  less  strenuous  than  orthodoxy, — but  as  the 
great  anthem  mounts  into  the  dim  recesses  of 
the  church,  we  find  ourselves  in  that  blessed 
mood  in  which  the  effort  to  explain  this  unin- 
telligible world  passes  from  us,  and  softened, 
humbled,  quickened  by  the  very  love  of  God, 
the  burden  of  the  mystery  is  lightened  and  we 
know  in  truth  that  *'  he  to  whom  the  eternal 
word  speaketh  is  delivered  from  many  an 
opinion."  ^ 

Truly  here,  in  its  avoidance  of  intellectual- 
ism,  in  its  willingness  to  accept  outward  con- 
formity in  the  place  of  formulated  conviction, 
lies  the  most  subtle  and  enduring  power  of 
ecclesiasticism  ;  especially  of  that  assured  and 
consistent  ecclesiasticism  which,  in  spite  of 
untoward  circumstances,  still  sits  enthroned 
upon  the  Seven  Hills ;  and  it  is  a  power  of 

'  Thomas  a  Kempis  :    The  Imitation  of  Christ. 


Ecclesiasticism  65 

which  present-day  Protestantism,  with  its  un- 
certain outlook,  is  manifestly  afraid.  In  a 
pamphlet  entitled.  Thoughts  on  the  Present 
Positzo7i  of  Protestantism,  Adolf  Harnack 
quotes  the  following  passage  from  "  an  en- 
lightened Roman  Catholic": 

"  Catholicism,  as  it  is,  gives  us  just  what  we  want,  a 
comprehensive  religion,  a  religion  full  of  myths,  super- 
stitions, and  absurdities,  and  on  the  other  hand,  full  of 
profound  ideas,  significant  ritual,  and  flourishing  sym- 
bolism, invested  with  an  artistic  charm,  and  yet  of  an 
ascetic  character,  adapted  to  every  kind  of  mood  and 
temper,  while  still  retaining  all  the  rings  of  growth  in  its 
mighty  trunk.  Doubts  and  self-tormenting  questions 
there  are  none,  for,  if  they  come,  authority  at  once  steps 
in.  But  no  07ie,  and  least  of  all,  an  educated  layman,  is 
expected  to  assimilate  this  enormous  systein  of  religion  as  an 
intellectual  possession,  a7id  to  regard  it  with  faith  "  (the 
italics  are  mine);  "on  the  contrary,  towards  it,  and  in  it 
all  attitudes  are  possible  and  tolerable,  .  .  .  the  be- 
liever takes  to  it  in  one  way,  the  freethinker  in  another. 
.  .  .  Above  all,  do  not  let  us  have  an  intellectual 
religion;  i_t__  would  immediately  begin  to  make  claims 
and  try  to  master  the  heads  and  consciences  of  men. 
This^  says  the  Catholic,  is  what  happens  in  Protestant- 
ism, which  is  accordingly  narrow,  limited,  presumptuous, 
and  importunate.  Protestantism  demands  that  every 
one  shall  believe  the  same  thing,  and  really  believe,  in 
his  inmost  heart,  everything  that  the  church  believes, 
and  by  it  regulate  his  whole  world  and  the  conduct  of 
5 


66  The  Religion  of  Christ 

his  life.  That  is  just  the  reason  why  it  is  so  divided 
and  politically  so  powerless — a  mere  refuge  for  perverse 
and  narrow  minds.  How  large  is  Catholicism  in  com- 
parison— how  universal  and  how  elastic  !  " 

And,  having  quoted  this  passage,  Professor 
Harnack  adds: 

"  Why  not  accept  the  development  ?  Have  not  we, 
too,  finally  broken  with  intellectualism  in  the  sphere  of 
religion  ?  Do  not  we,  too,  desire  that  religion,  unhamp- 
ered by  the  burden  of  doctrine,  should  intervene,  free 
and  elastic  in  all  the  complicated  conditions  and  moods 
of  life  ?  Those  who  want  a  great  church  must  adapt 
themselves  to  its  character  and  dress." 

Those  who  want  a  great  chtirch.  It  is  need- 
less to  add  that  Professor  Harnack  is  not 
of  this  number ;  that  he  would  hold  a  great 
church  of  this  sort  a  far  too  costly  purchase 
for  the  human  soul.  '*  He  to  whom  the 
eternal  word  speaketh  is  delivered  from  many 
an  opinion."  That  is  true,  but  it  is  also  true 
that  **  opinion  is  character  in  the  making "  ; 
that,  though  the  reason  of  man  humbly  admits 
its  limitations,  yet  we  are  reasonable  creatures, 
and  at  our  peril  betray  our  reason ;  that, 
though  we  may  acknowledge  that  the  truth 
which  is  in  us  is  but  partial  truth,  yet  we  must 


Ecclesiasticism  67 

be  faithful  to  this  truth  or  we  sap  the  very 
springs  of  character.  ReHgion  is  not  a  luxury 
of  the  imagination  ;  it  is  a  practical  motive 
force.  It  does  not  exist  to  provide  a  retreat 
from  life ;  it  exists  to  transform  life,  and  it  can 
only  transform  it  worthily  through  spiritual 
integrity.  If  we  subscribe  to  an  intellectual 
creed,  we  recognise  intellectual  responsibility  ; 
and  if,  playing  fast  and  loose  with  such  re- 
sponsibility, we  juggle  alike  with  our  intelli- 
gence and  our  aspirations,  repeat  with  our 
lips  formulas  which  our  intellect  condemns  as 
false,  and  declare  our  acceptance  of  dogmas  of 
which,  not  merely  our  intellect,  but  our  con- 
science is  afraid,  we  shall  surely  meet  with 
that  condemnation  which  attends  the  use  of 
all  symbol  from  which  the  living  spirit  has 
gone  forth ;  shall  surely  find  that  we  are  sep- 
arating our  religion  from  our  life,  and  are 
making  of  this  religion  "a  fond  thing,  vainly 
invented." 

So  far  as  symbol — creed  or  sacrament — helps 
us  to  do  the  will,  helps  us  to  the  love  of  God 
and  the  love  of  man,  let  us  accept  the  help 


68  The  Religion  of  Christ 

thankfully ;  but  let  us  beware  lest  we  forget 
that  symbol  can  never  be  more  than  a  means 
to  an  end,  and  that  what  is  truly  sacred  is  the 
end  and  not  the  means.  Otherwise  we  shall 
transform  our  help  into  a  hindrance,  and  shall 
be  forced  into  an  unpleasant  understanding  of 
certain  very  old  words  : 

"  And  now,  O  ye  priests,  this  commandment  is  for 
you.  If  ye  will  not  hear,  and  if  ye  will  not  lay  it  to 
heart,  to  give  glory  unto  my  name,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  I  will  even  send  a  curse  upon  you,  and  I  will  curse 
your  blessings;  yea,  I  have  cursed  them  already,  because 
ye  do  not  lay  it  to  heart."  * 

'  Malachi,  ii.,  i,  2. 


IV 

THE  PROTESTANT  IDEA 

"  The  children  of  Israel  in  times  past  said  unto  Moses,  'Speak 
thou  unto  us  and  we  will  hear  :  let  not  the  Lord  speak  unto  us  lest 
we  die.' 

"  Not  so,  Lord,  not  so,  I  beseech  Thee:  but  rather  with  the  prophet 
Samuel,  I  humbly  and  earnestly  entreat,  '  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy 
servant  heareth.'  " — Thomas  a  Kempis. 

DUT  let  us  look  more  closely  at  the  Protest- 
"^  antism  which  our  enlightened  Roman 
Catholic  condemns  with  so  much  point.  "  Nar- 
row," *'  limited,"  "  presumptuous,"  and  "  impor- 
tunate "  ;  few  will  deny  that,  in  its  comparatively 
brief  existence,  Protestantism  has  been  all  of 
these.  "  Divided  and  politically  powerless  "  ;  no 
one  can  deny  that  charge.  For,  however  plainly 
history  may  have  shown  us  the  danger  inherent 
in  dependence  upon  symbol,  it  has  shown  us 
no  less  plainly  that  the  Church  of  Rome  was 
right  in  her  contention  that  such  dependence 

furnishes  the  only  safe  basis  for  a  firm  ecclesi- 

69 


70  The  Religion  of  Christ 

asticism.  This  must  be  as  obvious  to  the 
Protestant  who  grudgingly  admits  that  the 
shrewd  old  Church  knew  what  she  was  about 
in  nipping  in  the  bud  any  notion  of  the  Indi- 
vidual that  he  might  think  for  himself,  as  to 
the  Catholic  who  points  out  how  the  wise  and 
holy  Mother,  an  infallible  authority,  through 
the  direct  and  abiding  Inspiration  of  God,  has 
controlled  the  presumption  of  fallible  private 
judgment,  and  has,  throughout  the  Christian 
ages,  made  her  own  the  words  spoken  in 
Judaea,  "  Come  unto  me  all  ye  who  labour  and 
are  heavy-laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 
Those  Christians  who  in  the  sixteenth  cent- 
ury sought  to  reform  the  Church  which,  in 
their  private  judgment,  they  held  to  have 
"  erred,  not  only  In  living  and  manner  of  cere- 
monies, but  also  in  matters  of  faith,"  intro- 
duced a  principle  of  disintegration  which  has 
ever  since  been  doing  Its  work ;  and,  further- 
more, by  making  conviction  and  not  observance 
the  one  thing  necessary,  they  fatally  weakened 
the  counteracting  power  of  eccleslasticlsm.  It 
was  as  If  they  at  once  undermined  the  fortlfi- 


The  Protestant  Idea  71 

cation  and  loosened  the  cement  which  held  its 
stones  together. 

We  all  know  the  result.  It  were  useless  to 
attempt  to  reckon  the  number  of  sects  into  which 
Protestantism  has,  first  and  last,  broken  up ; 
each  protesting  fragment  logically  considering 
itself,  not  only  a  church,  but  the  church.  The 
twenty-seven  stalwarts  in  Scotland  make  but 
the  moderate  claim  that  they  are  the  Scotch 
Free  Kirk.  They  might  also  claim  to  be  the 
one  true  Apostolic  church,  since,  as  Sabatier 
says,  "  Protestants  have  made  of  the  Apostolic 
period  the  first  chapter  in  the  history  of  Pro- 
testanism,  just  as  Catholics  have  made  of  it 
the  first  chapter  in  the  history  of  Catholicism." 
Among  all  the  variations  of  Protestant  opinion, 
only  one  can  be  absolutely  in  the  right ;  which 
is  what  the  twenty-seven  have  pointed  out. 
The  resulting  tumult  of  honest  and  earnest 
schism  is  not  agreeable  to  contemplate  ;  and 
the  Roman  Church  has  had  good  reason  to 
smile,  as  through  these  last  three  centuries 
she  has  watched  the  process  of  disintegration, 
listened  to  the  wrangling  of  opposing  opinion. 


T2  The  Religion  of  Christ 

and  marked  the  hitherto  vain  effort  of  Protest- 
antism to  unite  itself  upon  some  common 
ground. 

And  to-day  the  Roman  Church  has  more 
reason  to  smile  than  ever,  for  Protestanism  is 
fast  accomplishing  the  very  thing  she  said  it 
would  finally  accomplish,  the  destruction  of  the 
very  citadel  it  set  out  to  defend.  Declaring 
for  the  preeminence  of  orthodox  belief  over 
orthodox  behaviour,  Protestanism,  in  its  whole- 
hearted devotion  to  definite  formulas  of  faith, 
destroyed  the  only  bulwark  by  which  such 
formulas  could  be  maintained.  For  definite 
formulas  must  be  protected  by  some  authority 
from  the  disintegrating  action  of  private  judg- 
ment. Private  judgment  is  dependent  upon 
knowledge,  and  must  keep  pace  with  know- 
ledge, and  as  this  is  just  what  a  definite  for- 
mula cannot  do,  it  is  inevitable  that  private 
judgment  should  leave  the  formula  behind,  and 
should  ultimately  come  to  regard  it,  once 
again,  as  a  fond  thing,  vainly  invented. 

This  is  what  history — as  it  seems  to  me — 
has  been  pointing  out  more  and  more  plainly 


The  Protestant  Idea  73 

during  the  last  three  centuries, — that  dogma 
cannot  be  trusted  to  take  care  of  itself,  but  is 
safe  only  to  the  extent  in  which  it  is  entrenched 
in  ecclesiasticism.  Give  up  the  idea  of  a  media- 
torial institution  between  God  and  man,  of 
a  divinely  constituted,  authoritative  church,  to 
which  belongs  the  right  to  decide  all  questions 
of  belief  as  well  as  of  discipline  ;  substitute  for 
this,  the  opposing  idea  of  the  direct  and  im- 
mediate communion  of  the  soul  with  God, 
and  of  consequent  individual  responsibility,  and 
nothing  can  stop  the  gradual  disintegration  of 
dogma.  There  is  no  logical  stopping-place  in 
the  process,  no  logical  break  between  Luther 
and  Theodore  Parker.  If  we  must  have  dogma, 
we  must  have  ecclesiasticism  to  take  care  of  it. 
No  substituted  protector  has  proved  trust- 
worthy, though  Protestantism,  as  we  all  know, 
was  not  slow  to  supply  one.  The  earliest  re- 
formers were  fearless  enough  in  their  trust  in 
the  spirit,  but  it  soon  became  manifest  that 
such  trust  would  inevitably  lead  to  the  de- 
moralisation of  the  letter,  and  Protestantism 
was  by  no  means  prepared  to  part  with   the 


74  The  Religion  of  Christ 

letter.  The  leaders  of  the  Reformation  very 
quickly  perceived  that  to  give  up  a  central 
authority  was  to  abandon  themselves  to  all  the 
winds  of  doctrine  ;  and  having  had  enough  of 
the  infallible  authority  of  a  Church,  having,  in 
fact,  denied  the  existence  of  such  authority  in 
getting  rid  of  all  that  portion  of  the  teaching 
of  this  Church  which  they  regarded  in  the 
light  of  *'  blasphemous  fable  and  dangerous  de- 
ceit," they  endeavoured  to  make  a  fresh  start 
with  a  fresh  infallible  authority, — that  of  a 
book. 

It  was  not  a  new  book,  but  it  came  upon  the 
world  like  a  new  book  so  prudent,  so  far-see- 
ing had  been  the  Church's  guardianship  of  it. 
While  admitting  that  this  book  was  the  word 
of  God,  she  had,  by  constituting  herself  its 
sole  interpreter,  not  only  avoided  any  question 
of  divided  authority,  but  greatly  strengthened 
her  position  as  the  one  divinely-appointed  de- 
pository of  all  truth.  In  no  respect  did  the 
Church  of  the  centuries  show  a  greater  discern- 
ment, a  more  profound  knowledge  of  the  work- 
ings of  the  human  mind,  than  in  her  treatment 


The  Protestant  Idea  75 

of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  in  her  determin- 
ation to  keep  these  Scriptures  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  people.       Her  policy  was  more  than 
justified  by  the  course  of  events.     For  when 
the  revival  of  learning  finally  broke  through 
her  guard,  and  the  Bible  did  come   into   the 
hands  of  the  laity,  Protestantism  at  once  found 
its  charter  in  a   book   which    was   conceived 
throughout  in  accordance  with  the  Protestant 
idea,   from    whose    pages    rose   the   constant 
prayer,  "  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth." 
Protestantism  found  its  charter  in  the  Bible, 
but,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  could  not  find 
there  the  infallible  authority  which  it  sought  ; 
in  the  nature  of  things  it  could  not  in  the  long 
run  protect  this  Bible  from  its  own  individual- 
ism ;  could   not  defend  this   Protestant  book 
from  the  Protestant  idea  of  the  right  of  pri- 
vate judgment.     Toward  the  understanding  of 
"  this  work,  slowly  and  laboriously  constructed, 
of  the  ancient  Jewish  Synagogue  and  of  the 
early  Christian  Church,"  ^  there  was  need  of 
all  the  individual  interpretation  which  love  and 

'  Sabatier  :     Religions  of  Authority. 


76  The  Religion  of  Christ 

knowledge  could  furnish,  and  Luther's  own 
contribution  to  the  ''  higher  criticism  "  was  not 
inconsiderable.  We  know,  indeed,  that,  as 
time  went  on,  and  the  increasing  rigidity  of 
Protestantism  brought  with  it  the  increasing 
need  of  some  central  incontestable  authority, 
the  attempt  was  made  to  maintain  the  abso- 
lute infallibility  of  the  Bible  by  dogmatic  in- 
sistence on  its  plenary  inspiration.  But  there 
was  no  fulcrum  upon  which  to  rest  this  lever, 
and  the  attempt  could  meet  with  but  temporary 
success.  It  was  impossible  for  Protestantism 
long  to  withstand  the  Protestant  determination 
to  read  for  itself,  and  to  seek  to  understand  what 
it  read  in  the  light  of  increasing  knowledge. 

The  result  of  this  higher  criticism  all  the 
world  knows,  and  again  the  Roman  Church 
may  say,  and  does  say,  *'  I  told  you  so."  A 
sifting  process  has  been  applied  to  this  book, 
or  rather  to  this  collection  of  books,  by  which 
the  essential  has  been  separated  from  the  un- 
essential, the  temporary  from  the  eternal.  Men 
have  come  to  see  that  to  assert  that  equal 
value  attaches  to  all  portions  of  the  collection 


The  Protestant  Idea  "Ji 

and  that  the  word  of  God  is  to  be  found  as 
truly  in  the  regulations  of  Jewish  sacrifice  as 
in  the  teaching  of  the  prophets  ;  in  the  "  wild 
stories  of  palace  treasons  and  feud  and  mur- 
der in  the  Books  of  Kings,"  as  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  is  to  assert  what  is  obviously 
contradicted  by  all  religious  experience. 

"  To  refer  our  children  indifferently  to  Jacob  and  to 
Christ,  to  bid  them  go  and  learn  devotion,  now  amid  the 
yells  of  exterminating  war  in  Gibeon,  and  then  at  the 
feet  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  in  Nazareth,  can  only  pro- 
duce the  most  bewildered  conception  of  Deity,  and  the 
most  unsteady  operation  of  the  devotional  sentiment."  ' 

It  were  foolish  to  dwell  upon  this.  The  era 
of  "  destructive  criticism  "  is  past,  and  lo  !  now 
that  it  is  past,  it  becomes  apparent  that  it  was 
not  destructive  after  all.  Nothing  vital  has 
been  touched.  On  the  contrary,  never  has  the 
real  Bible  been  valued  as  it  is  to-day.  Not 
for  its  cosmogony,  poetic  as  it  is ;  not  for  its 
history,  stirring  and  dramatic  as  are  its  records  ; 
not  for  its  legislation,  interesting  as  are  many 
of  its  enactments ;  but  for  its  unequalled 
expression    of   spiritual    insight  and    spiritual 

'  James  Martineau  :      The  Bible  and  the  Child. 


78  The  Religion  of  Christ 

experience,  for  its  splendid  and  abiding  faith 
in  the  eternal  things  which  are  not  seen,  and  in 
the  power  of  the  human  soul  to  lift  itself  Into 
communion  with  that  God  who  is  the  Father 
of  us  all. 

Very  grateful  have  we  reason  to  be  to  the 
earnest  and  patient  scholarship  which  has 
drawn  aside  the  veil  woven  of  legend  and 
fable,  of  local  and  temporary  legislation,  of 
tribal  warfare  and  international  politics,  and 
which  has  shown  us  the  ''  heart  of  the  Bible," 
the  testimony  of  prophet  and  poet  and  seer  to 
the  eternal  verities.  Far  from  lessening  the 
influence  of  the  Bible,  that  criticism,  against 
which,  in  Its  earlier  stages,  alarmed  orthodoxy 
so  vehemently  protested,  has  served  only  to 
bring  the  book  into  closer  relation  to  human 
life,  by  pointing  out  that  it  is  not  a  non-natural 
revelation  from  God,  but  a  natural  revelation 
of  God  ;  a  revelation  in  accord  with  all  human 
experience,  not  outward  and  capricious,  but 
Inward  and  enduring ;  an  everlasting  witness 
to  the  reality  of  spiritual  evolution.  As  we 
follow  the  story  of  the  Hebrew  people  and  per- 


The  Protestant  Idea  79 

ceive  how  by  degrees  they  discerned  in  the 
jealous  Thunder-God  of  Sinai,  with  His  denun- 
ciation of  ''  all  other  gods,"  that  Eternal  One, 
"  who  created  the  heavens  and  stretched  them 
out,  he  that  spread  forth  the  earth  and  that 
which  cometh  out  of  it,  he  that  giveth  breath 
unto  the  people  upon  it,  and  spirit  to  them 
that  walk  therein,"  he  *'  whose  counsels  of  old 
are  faithfulness  and  truth,"  ^  we  behold  the 
working  of  that  law  by  which  the  thoughts 
of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the 
suns,  and  we  recognise  how  this  widening  pro- 
cess must  inevitably  do  away  with  the  narrower 
conception.  Nowhere  in  the  literature  of  the 
world  is  there  to  be  found  such  another  record 
of  spiritual  progress,  as  that  by  which  the  mind 
of  man  passed  from  the  worship  of  the  God  of 
Joshua,  personally  conducting  an  offensive  cam- 
paign and  commanding  His  peculiar  people 
utterly  to  destroy  the  inhabitants  of  the  land, 
"  both  man  and  woman,  young  and  old,  with 
the  edge  of  the  sword  "  ;  to  the  worship  of  that 
Deity  of  whom  Malachi  cries,  **  Have  we  not 

•  Isaiah  xlii.,  5,  and  xxv.,  I. 


8o  The  Religion  of  Christ 

all   one  Father?   hath   not  one   God  created 

us?"     It  is  a  record  of  spiritual  progress  in 

which  the  human  spirit  may  find  its  greatest 

encouragement  and  inspiration,  but  the  very 

fact  that  it  is  a  record  of  spiritual  progress  is 

fatal  to  any  attempt  to  derive  from  this  book  a 

dogmatic  authority  outside  of  the  human  heart. 

"  It  is  no  longer  the  book  which  supports  the  truth  of, 
its  teaching,  it  is  the  elevation,  the  power,  the  general 
truth  of  the  teaching,  recognised  by  the  conscience^  which 
supports  the  moral  and  religious  authority  of  the  book. 
There  is  no  one  now  who  does  not  admit  this  truth,  which 
would  have  seemed  intolerable  to  our  fathers,  namely, 
that  the  word  of  God  is  in  the  Bible,  but  that  all  the 
Bible  is  not  the  word  of  God."  ' 

As  we  read  these  latest  conclusions  of  Pro- 
testant theology  we  recognise  that  the  '*  Holy 
Scriptures  "  have  been  far  indeed  from  arrest- 
ing the  natural  development  of  the  Protestant 
idea,  the  idea  of  individual  responsibiHty,  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  human  conscience.  On 
the  contrary,  these  Holy  Scriptures  have 
given  to  this  idea  additional  strength,  and  it 
is  between  the  covers  of  the  Bible  that  it  finds 
its  most  adequate  expression. 

'  Sabatier  :  Religions  of  Authority. 


The  Protestant  Idea  8i 

**  I  waited  patiently  for  the  Lord; 

And  he  inclined  unto  me  and  heard  my  cry. 

He  brought  me  up  also  out  of  an  horrible  pit,  out  of 

the  miry  clay; 
And  he  set  my  feet  upon  a  rock,  and  established  my 

goings. 
And  he  hath  put  a  new  song  in  my  mouth,  even  praise 

unto  our  God: 
Many  shall  see  it  and  fear, 
And  shall  trust  in  the  Lord. 

Blessed  is  the  man  that  maketh  the  Lord  his  trust. 
And  respecteth  not  the  proud  nor  such  as  turn  aside 

to  lies. 
Many,  O    Lord,  my   God,  are  the  wonderful   works 

which  thou  hast  done, 
And  thy  thoughts  which  are  to  usward: 
They  cannot  be  set  in  order  unto  thee; 
If  I  would  declare  and  speak  of  them, 
They  are  more  than  can  be  numbered. 
Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  hast  no  delight  in; 
Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened: 

Burnt-offering  and  sin-offering  hast  thou  not  required. 
Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  am  come; 
In  the  roll  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me: 
I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  O  my  God; 
Yea,  thy  law  is  within  my  heart."  * 

Yea,  thy  law  is  within  my  heart — there.  In 
brief,  is  the  Protestant  idea. 

» Psalm  xl. 


V 


ULTRA-PROTESTANTISM 

"  O  God  who  art  the  truth,  make  me  one  with  Thee  in  everlasting 
love.  It  wearieth  me  often  to  read  and  hear  many  things.  In  Thee 
is  all  that  I  would  have  and  can  desire.  Let  all  doctors  hold  their 
peace  ;  let  all  creatures  be  silent  in  Thy  sight,  speak  Thou  alone  unto 
me.  " —  Thomas  a  Kenipis. 

"  W  E  A,  thy  law  Is  within  my  heart."  It  is  be- 
*  cause  Protestantism  cannot,  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  Protestantism,  recognise  any  outward 
authority  inconsistent  with  this  inward  law, 
that  I  have  ventured  to  assert  that  there  is  no 
logical  break  between  Luther  and  Theodore 
Parker.  And  in  this  assertion  the  Roman 
Church  would  cheerfully  bear  me  out.  Only 
she  would  prefer — slightly  prefer — to  say  : 
There  Is  no  logical  break  between  Luther  and 
atheism.  Newman  did  say  this — finally.  "  I 
am  a  Catholic,"  he  declares,  ''because  I  be- 
lieve in  God." 

82 


Ultra-Protestantism  83 

But  to  the  large  majority  of  Protestants  to- 
day the  reHgion  of  Theodore  Parker  will  seem 
a  sufficiently  alarming  goal ;  and  if  they  really 
become  convinced  that  this  is  the  goal  to  which 
the  path  they  are  following  leads,  that  the 
Protestant  idea,  if  allowed  to  have  its  own 
way,  will  inevitably  work  itself  out  to  this  con- 
clusion, they  will  certainly  question  the  validity 
of  this  Idea  as  they  have  never  questioned  It 
before.  And  if  these  things  come  to  pass  what 
will  be  the  long  result  ?  Will  the  majority  of 
Protestants  retreat  into  the  one  assured  ''  Re- 
ligion of  Authority  "  which  permits  no  doubts 
or  tormenting  questions,  or  will  they  keep  their 
faith  in  the  inward  oruide  and  follow  it  into  a 
Religion  of  the  Spirit?  The  years  alone  can 
answer  this  question,  and  the  future  guards  its 
secrets  well.  But,  though  the  Time-Spirit  Is  in- 
different to  party  and  sect,  and  transfers  his 
support  without  scruple,  just  at  present  he  is 
undeniably  with  advanced  Protestant  thought, 
and  this  fact  lends  an,  at  least,  present  interest 
to  the  position  of  the  ultra-Protestant.  If 
Theodore  Parker  is  really  the  representative 


84  The  Religion  of  Christ 

of  this  position,  if  Unitarlanism  really  is  the 
logical  outcome  of  the  Protestant  idea,  then 
the  religious  position  of  this  numerically  unim- 
portant sect  acquires  a  new  interest  for  Pro- 
testantism in  general. 

I  suppose  no  one  nowadays  would  question 
the  indentification  of  Parker  with  Unitarianism, 
though  the  Unitarians  of  Parker's  day  did  cast 
forth  this  nineteenth-century  Luther.  For 
the  Unitarianism  which  repudiated  Parker  has 
passed  away.  Having  let  go  its  hold  upon  dog- 
matic authority,  it  strove  in  vain  to  stay  itself  on 
a  slippery  inclined  plane.  If  there  is  any  ''  old- 
fashioned  Unitarianism"  left  in  the  land,  it  is 
practically  obliterated  by  liberal  orthodoxy, 
which  is  at  present  occupying  the  inclined 
plane  in  its  stead.  Unitarianism  has  completed 
the  slide,  and  whatever  weakness  may  be 
charged  against  it  to-day,  it  is  no  longer  weak 
from  the  attempt  to  hold  a  precarious  theologi- 
cal position.  If  it  represents  "  mere  theism,"  it 
represents  pure  theism.  That  weakness  is 
charged  against  Unitarianism,  that  it  has  not 
hitherto  proved  what   is  called    "  a  vigorous 


Ultra-Protestantism  85 

sect,"  Is,  I  suppose,  beyond  dispute.  A  hun- 
dred years  ago  It  seemed  likely  to  have  things 
pretty  much  Its  own  way  In  New  England. 
*'  Of  the  twenty-five  churches  first  founded  In 
Massachusetts  about  twenty  were  Unitarian. 
.  .  .  The  wealth,  culture,  and  social  Influence 
of  Boston  were  Unitarian," — as  were  nine  of  Its 
ten  churches,  and  the  neighbouring  college. 
*'  The  great  offices  of  the  state  were  held  by 
Unitarians.  .  .  .  The  Unitarian  clergy 
list  was  such  a  roster  of  splendid  names  as  no 
clergy  of  like  numbers  In  Christendom  could 
show.  .  .  .  There  was  much  to  justify  the 
prophecy  that  was  uttered  that  Unltarlanism 
would  presently  become  the  prevailing  form  of 
American  Christianity."^ 

Why  has  not  the  prophecy  been  fulfilled  ? 
Why  has  Unltarlanism  remained  so  nearly 
stationary  ?  The  question.  In  view  of  the  pre- 
sent bent  of  the  TIme-SpIrIt  becomes  of  Increas- 
ing Interest.  Many  answers  have  been  given 
to  It,  and  there  Is  probably  some  truth  In  most 

'  Leonard  Woolsey  Bacon:  The  Congregationa lists ,  in  the  Story  of 
the  Churches. 


86  The  Religion  of  Christ 

of  them ;  there  may  even  be  some  ground  for  the 
familiar  gibe  that  Unitarians  have  not  wished 
to  make  their  religion  too  common.  But,  to 
my  seeing,  the  various  explanations  of  the 
stationary  character  of  Unitarianism  grow 
from  one  root ;  to  me  it  seems  that  the  real 
trouble  with  the  Unitarian  body  as  a  whole, 
and  therefore  with  Unitarianism  as  a  leader, 
is  a  lack  which  results  in  a  great  measure  from 
the  circumstances  of  its  development,  the  lack 
oi  positive  spiritual  conviction. 

Unitarian  ideas  are  as  old  as  Christianity, 
but  Unitarianism  as  a  distinctly  organised 
movement  of  thought  came  into  existence  as 
a  protest  of  Protestantism,  and  it  has  never 
wholly  divested  itself  of  its  negative  character, 
but  has  remained  to  a  great  extent  negative  in 
its  distinctive  convictions  and  negative  in  its 
distinctive  virtues.  Now,  protest  against  er- 
ror if  often  necessary, — it  would  ill  become  a 
child  of  the  Reformation  to  hold  otherwise, 
— but  negative  convictions  are  merely  useful 
in  clearing  the  way  for  positive  convictions, 
and    negative    virtues    are    not    very    trust- 


Ultra- Protestantism  8  7 

worthy.  To  sweep  and  garnish  a  house  Is 
no  protection  against  demons ;  there  are  even 
some  varieties,  notably  the  demons  of  self- 
sufficiency,  which  prefer  such  conditions. 
*'  Liberality,"  says  Birrell,  *'  Is  not  a  creed, 
but  a  frame  of  mind."  Neither  is  it  the  absence 
of  a  creed. 

The  truth  is  you  cannot  make  religion  out 
of  even  the  noblest  negative  protest,  for  there 
Is  nothing  saving  in  protest,  and  religion  has 
to  do  with  salvation.  We  cannot  get  along 
without  religion  because  we  cannot  get  along 
without  salvation.  Some  of  us  need  more 
saving  than  others,  but  we  all  need  it.  It  has 
often  been  said  that  Unltarlanism  is  weak  be- 
cause It  has  too  much  confidence  In  ''  the  recti- 
tude of  man."  I  do  not  myself  believe  that  It 
Is  possible  to  have  too  much  confidence  In  the 
ultimate  rectitude  of  man,  but  it  certainly  does 
seem  to  me  that  Unltarlanism  has  underrated 
the  need  of  a  positive  faith  In  helping  man  to 
realise  his  rectitude,  that  is,  to  make  It  real, 
and  to  work  out  his  salvation, — to  work  It  out, 
if  necessary,  in  fear  and  trembling.       A  vital 


88  The  Religion  of  Christ 

religion  must  not  only  comfort  and  build  up 
believers  unto  salvation  but  it  must  have  light 
and  power  to  convince  and  convert  sinners, 
and  such  light  and  power  come  only  from 
strong  spiritual  conviction. 

It  is  hard  to  make  people  believe  that  the 
soul  requires  nourishment  as  truly  as  the  intel- 
lect or  the  body,  and  grows  strong  in  the  same 
fashion.  It  may  be  true  as  Thomas  a  Kempis 
says  that  *'  he  that  knoweth  how  to  live  in- 
wardly, neither  requireth  places  nor  awaiteth 
times  for  performing  of  religious  exercises,"  but 
is  it  such  a  simple  thing  to  know  how  to  live 
inwardly  ?  Do  not  most  of  us  need  to  learn  the 
secret  from  those  to  whom  have  been  given  the 
greater  gifts  ?  Very  full  of  trouble  is  this  hu- 
man life  ;  our  sins  are  many  ;  the  remembrance 
of  them  is  grievous  unto  us,  the  burden  of  them 
is  intolerable  ;  and,  often,  without  sin  of  ours, 
there  comes  to  us  a  trembling  heart,  and  failing 
of  eyes,  and  sorrow  of  mind.  We  have  sore 
need  of  the  healing  touch  of  One  who  is 
full  of  compassion,  long  suffering  and  of  great 
pity  ;    sore  need  to  learn    from   the  spiritual 


Ultra-Protestantism  89 

experiences   of   souls   greater   than    our  own 

that 

"  Consolation's  sources  deeper  are 
Than  sorrows  deepest," 

and  that  the  heart-felt  prayer, 

"  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God; 
And  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me," 

has  never  been  lifted  in  vain  to  Him  who  dis- 
covereth  deep  things  out  of  darkness,  and 
bringeth  out  to  light  the  shadow  of  death. 

'*  Salvation  by  character,"  reads  the  Uni- 
tarian creed;  and  the  words  express  a  noble 
idea — the  idea  that  salvation  is  a  process. 
But  as  we  work  out  this  process  through  the 
building  up  of  character,  how  shall  we  *'lay 
stone  to  stone,"  how  shall  our  "bleeding  feet 
and  aching  hands"  toil  faithfully  through 
"  hours  of  gloom,"  unless  the  will  be  strength- 
ened by  *'  hours  of  insight  "  ?  And  such  hours 
of  insight  are  born  of  positive  not  negative 
conviction.  *'  It  is  God  that  justifieth  ;  who 
is  he  that  shall  condemn  ?  "  Paul  and  Luther 
and  Parker  were  justified,  not  by  their  protest 
but  by  their  faith. 


90  The  Religion  of  Christ 

This  doctrine,  now,  of  "Justification  by 
Faith":  Unitarianism  has  always  protested  vig- 
orously against  Its  "  antlnomlan  tendency,"  but 
has  it  not  been  too  much  preoccupied  with  this 
protest  to  grasp  very  clearly  the  essential  mean- 
ing of  the  doctrine  Itself  ?  One  may  carry  the 
question  back  to  the  earliest  Christian  docu- 
ments. The  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  Is  held 
mainly  responsible  for  the  doctrine — certainly 
he  had  positive  convictions  In  this  direction — 
and  we  find  a  very  early  Unitarian,  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  of  James,  opposing  Paul  on 
the  familiar  ground  that  '*  faith  without  works 
Is  dead."  Now  In  this  contention  ''James"  Is 
manifestly  right,  faith  without  works  is  dead  : 
but  such  faith  as  Paul's  could  no  more  be  with- 
out works  than  a  deeply  rooted  and  well-nour- 
ished tree  can  be  without  fruit.  'Wx^  purpose 
of  the  tree  is  the  fruit,  but  to  make  of  this 
fact  a  reason  for  starving  the  roots  is  to  take 
a  somewhat  superficial  view.  '*  Do  we  then 
make  the  law  of  none  effect  through  faith  ? 
God  forbid  :  nay,  we  establish  the  law." 

Luther  called  "  James"  an  ''epistle  of  straw." 


Ultra- Protestantism  91 

Surely  It  is  not  that.  Its  writer  was  a  very 
good  man,  and  he  says  many  wise  and  beauti- 
ful things,  but  he  did  not  grasp  the  essential 
meaning  of  the  great  spiritual  doctrine  which 
he  opposed.  He  opposed  it  because  he  did 
not  understand  It,  and  he  failed  to  understand 
it  because  he  failed  to  go  deep  enough.  There 
is  no  more  hopeful  sign  In  the  Unltarlanism  of 
to-day  than  Its  apparently  growing  Inclination 
to  exchange  the  reading  of  "James,"  for  the 
study  of  Paul.  It  means  study,  for  Paul  Is 
difficult — there  is  no  denying  that. 

He  was  a  Jew,  of  the  stock  of  Israel,  of  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin ;  a  Hebrew  of  Hebrews, 
"  as  touching  the  law  a  Pharisee,  as  touching 
zeal,  persecuting  the  church,  as  touching  the 
righteousness  which  Is  in  the  law,  found  blame- 
less.'"'^  A  Pharisee  indeed  !  And  as  Sabatler 
truly  says,  ''the  Pharisee  long  continued  In 
St.  Paul  after  he  became  an  Apostle  of  Christ." 
One  sees  It  In  his  preoccupation  with  logic — 
logic  halr-splltting  and  sophistical  enough  at 
times;  in  his  tendency  to  intellectualise  and  dog- 

*  Philippians  iii.,  5,  6. 


92  The  Religion  of  Christ 

matise.  One  sees  it,  too,  in  those  occasional  out- 
breaks of  proud  bitterness  and  harsh  contempt 
with  which  he  sometimes  meets  the  natural 
distrust  of  his  less  gifted  brethren  of  Jerusalem. 
Moreover,  Paul  was  a  theologian,  and  took 
more  interest  in  basing  a  theological  structure 
on  his  notion  of  the  second  Adam  than  in  the 
report  of  the  little  group  of  disciples  concern- 
ing the  practical  teaching  of  Jesus  ;  was  more 
preoccupied  with  his  theory  of  the  cross,  than 
with  the  details  of  the  life  which  led  to  the 
cross.  Nevertheless,  though  one  may  hesitate 
to  fall  in  with  the  somewhat  naive  statement 
of  a  modern  '*  champion  of  orthodoxy  "  that  he 
*'  finds  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and 
Ephesians  a  fuller  manifestation  of  the  mind 
of  Christ  than  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  ^ 
it  remains  true  that  this  Pharisee,  so  unlike 
the  Master  in  temperament  and  training, 
grasped  more  clearly  than  any  of  the  immedi- 
ate followers  of  that  Master  the  central  idea  of 
his  teaching, — the  idea  that  the  letter  killeth, 

'  Dr.    Dale :    quoted   in    The   Atonement  in   Modern   Religious 
Thought. 


Ultra-Protestantism  93 

but  the  spirit  giveth  life,  ''so  that  we  serve 
in  newness  of  the  spirit,  not  in  oldness  of 
the  letter."  ^  So,  again  and  again,  does  the 
spirit  that  was  in  Paul  get  the  better  of  his 
pride  of  intellect  and  Pharasaic  training,  the 
"  lendings  "  are  thrown  aside,  and  the  mighty 
soul  of  the  man  asserts  itself  and  sends  a  voice 
ringing  down  the  centuries. 

Paul  is  generally  regarded  as  the  tutelary 
saint  of  Protestantism,  and  with  reason.  He 
was  not  an  *'  ecclesiastic,"  and  his  views  as  to 
''  bondage  to  beggarly  rudiments,"  and  the 
*'  observance  of  days  and  months  and  seasons 
and  years," ^  were  much  more  to  the  mind  of  the 
Reformers  than  to  that  of  the  builders  of  the 
Church  Catholic.  So  was  it  also  with  his  body  of 
doctrine,  and  even  with  his  temper.  His  writings 
fairly  bristle  with  Protestant  pronouncements  : 
"  For  why  is  my  liberty  judged  by  another 
conscience?"^  ''Let  no  man  judge  of  you 
by  a  new  moon  or  a  Sabbath."  ^  "  Where  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty."^     Paul 

'  Romans  vii.,  6.  'Gal.  iv.,  g,  lo,  ii. 

^  I  Cor.  X.,  29.  •*Col.  ii.,  16.  *2  Cor.  iii.,  17. 


94  The  Religion  of  Christ 

is  distinctly  a  Protestant  doctor,  and  Ultra- 
Protestantism  can  find  no  better  guide  up  the 
mount  from  whose  summit  the  Great  Sermon  is 
still  preached  than  this  'Meast  of  the  apostles," 
**  born  out  of  due  time  "  ;  this  man  of  contra- 
dictions who,  *'  weak  in  bodily  presence  and  in 
his  speech  of  no  account,"  tormented  by  the 
thorn  in  his  flesh,  emotional  and  impression- 
able in  spite  of  his  powerful  intellect,  yet 
towers  above  the  Twelve  through  the  power 
of  the  faith  that  was  in  him  ;  a  faith  run  in  a 
dogmatic  mould  created  out  of  various  ele- 
ments by  a  great,  original  genius,  but  remain- 
ing always  a  spiritual  principle,  "  a  holding 
fast  to  an  unseen  power  of  goodness."^ 

The  dogmatic  mould  has  been  broken  by 
the  centuries.  For  *'  whether  there  be  prophe- 
cies, they  shall  be  done  away ;  whether  there 
be  tongues,  they  shall  cease  ;  whether  there  be 
knowledge,  it  shall  be  done  away.  For  we 
know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part ;  but 
when  that  which  is  perfect  Is  come,  that  which 
is  in  part  shall  be  done  away."      But  the  need 

'  Matthew  Arnold  :   St.  Paul  and  Protestantism, 


Ultra-Protestantism  95 

of  the  subjective  principle,  of  the  "  holding  fast 
to  an  unseen  power  of  goodness,"  remains. 
"  But  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these 
three  ;  and  the  greatest  of  these  is  love."  ^ 

Here  is  sure  footing  for  a  ''  liberal  church  "  ; 
here  is  a  "  positive  conviction  "  for  such  a 
church  to  take  into  its  heart,  a  vital  principle 
which  shall  never  fail  it.  For  love — the  love 
of  God  and  the  love  of  man  which  Jesus 
taught,  which  was  his  religion — never  faileth  ; 
but  In  the  midst  of  tongues  that  shall  cease, 
and  prophesying  and  knowledge  that  shall  pass 
away,  such  love  **beareth  all  things,  bellev- 
eth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all 
things."  "  For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  these  are  sons  of  God ;  and  the 
Spirit  himself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit 
that  we  are  children  of  God."~ 

If  this  twentieth  century  Is  really  to  see  a 
march  into  the  Promised  Land  of  a  Relioflon 
of  the  Spirit,  the  Unitarians  would  seem  to  be 
stationed  well  in  the  van  of  such  a  movement. 
But  it  Is   not   enoueh   to  be  stationed  there. 

'  I  Corinthians,  chap,  xiii,  "^Romans  viii.,  i6. 


9^  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Spiritual  leadership  means  spiritual  progress. 
Men  may  be  driven  by  reason  to  a  change  of 
opinion,  but  they  can  be  led  to  a  living  faith 
only  by  a  living  faith,  a  faith  whose  '*  loss  in 
extent,"  to  use  Jowett's  words,  has  meant  *'a 
gain  in  intensity."  Is  such  a  faith  in  Uni- 
tarianism  ?  It  has  been  one  of  many  leavens 
working  in  the  meal  of  Protestantism,  is  it 
capable  of  being  something  more  than  this? 
a  force  as  well  as  an  influence  ?  ''  By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  That  appears  to 
be  the  test  which  the  new  century  proposes  for 
the  new  creeds.  Will  Unitarianism  meet  this 
test  ?  Now  that  the  need  for  negative  protest 
is  passing  away  will  it  prove  to  hold  a  positive 
faith  sufficient  unto  salvation,  justifying  its 
creed  of  "salvation  by  character,"  through  the 
production  of  a  type  of  character  especially 
and  increasingly  faithful  and  hopeful  and  lov- 
ing? If  so,  and  there  are  "signs  of  promise," 
it  will  assuredly  hold  its  place  in  the  van  ;  if 
not — so,  at  least,  it  seems  to  me — its  reason  for 
being  will  pass  away  with  the  passing  of  those 
dogmatic  assertions  against  which  it  protested, 


Ultra-Protestantism  97 

and  It  will  hardly  avoid  losing  itself  In  the  ad- 
vancing ranks  of  liberal  orthodoxy.  In  which 
division  of  those  ranks  ?  Will  Unltarlanism, 
one  of  these  days,  find  itself  once  more  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  with  Its  **  Congregation ah.f/'" 
brethren  ?  This  would  seem  the  most  natural 
outcome.  But  the  actual  Indications  point  In 
a  different  direction.  Jowett  long  ago  re- 
marked of  ''Dissent,"  that  Its  ''constant  de- 
generation into  Unltarlanism  and  never  Into 
Latltudlnarianism "  was  "a  remarkable  fea- 
ture." It  is  a  no  less  remarkable  feature  that 
what  Unltarlanism  *'  degenerates "  Into  is  not 
merely  Latltudlnarianism  but  genuine  Ritual- 
ism. It  is  seldom  that  a  Unitarian  Is  converted 
Into  an  orthodox  Dissenter,  but  Unitarians 
frequently  enter  the  Episcopal  Church,  and 
not  Infrequently  become  Roman  Catholics. 
It  Is  Indeed  a  feature  eminently  worth  remark- 
ing by  Protestantism  In  general.  At  a  first 
glance  it  seems  to  testify  to  the  wisdom  of 
Emerson's  disconcerting  angel,  "  In  vain  pro- 
duced, all  rays  return  "  ;  what  It  really  testi- 
fies to,  I  take  it,  Is  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  the 


93  The  Religion  of  Christ 

spirit,  which  finds  what  a  Kempis  would  call  a 
certain  hardness  and  dryness  in  an  Ultra-Pro- 
testantism, the  natural  development  of  which 
has  been  almost  purely  intellectual. 

For  the  defect  of  "  intellectualism,"  that 
defect  of  the  quality  of  the  whole  Protestant 
movement,  is  no  less  the  defect  of  negative 
than  of  positive  intellectualism,  and  it  is  a  de- 
fect which  can  only  be  remedied  by  the  action 
of  the  free  spirit. 

The  two  positive  commandments  reasserted 
by  Jesus  have  a  power  unknown  to  the 
ten  negative  commandments  of  the  Mosaic 
dispensation,  and  the  Ultra-Protestantism 
which  would  lead  us  into  a  Religion  of  the 
Spirit  must  write  the  commandments  of 
its  new  covenant,  not  **  Thou  shalt  not 
believe  in  a  Trinity,  or  a  Hell,  or  a  vicarious 
Atonement :  thou  shalt  7iot  believe  In  the 
high  mysteries  of  election  and  reprobation," 
but — 

*'  Thou  shalt  believe  in  God,  and  in  man 
as  the  child  of  God  :  thou  shalt  believe 
in     the    power    unto    salvation  of  faith    and 


Ultra-Protestantism  99 

hope    and    love — whereof     the     greatest     is 
love." 

Such  an  Ultra- Protestantism  need  have  no 
fear  of  "reaction." 


VI 

THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH 

"The  woman  saith  unto  him,  Sir,  I  perceive  that  thou  art  a  prophet. 
Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this  mountain  ;  and  ye  say  that  in  Jerusa-^ 
lem  is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  saith  unto  her. 
Woman,  believe  me,  the  hour  cometh  when  neither  in  this  mountain, 
nor  in  Jerusalem,  shall  ye  worship  the  Father.  .  .  .  The  hour 
cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the 
Father  in  spirit  and  truth  :  for  such  doth  the  Father  seek  to  be  his 
worshippers.  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must  wor- 
ship in  spirit  and  truth." — The  Gospel  according  to  St.  John, 

DUT  the  mention  of  the  tendency  occasion- 
■^  ally  discernible  in  Ultra-Protestantism  to 
hark  back  to  thorough-going  ecclesiasticism, 
brings  us  naturally  to  the  further  question 
whether  in  Protestantism  the  Protestant  idea 
must  necessarily  have  its  own  way  and  work  it- 
self out  to  its  logical  conclusion  ;  whether  a 
compromise  may  not  be  possible  between  the 
extreme  individualism  of  Protestantism  and  the 
extreme  ecclesiasticism  of  the  Roman  Church, 
a  compromise  which  should  preserve  the  Chris- 


The  Anglican  Church  loi 

tian  Religion  from  being,  on  the  one  hand, 
"  narrow,  limited,  presumptuous,  and  impor- 
tunate," and  on  the  other,  "vain,  erroneous, 
superstitious,  and  idolatrous."  And  this  ques- 
tion looks  directly  for  its  answer  to  the  great 
attempt  at  such  compromise — the  Church  of 
England. 

In  point  of  fact,  one  of  the  plain  results  of 
the  present  decreasing  confidence  in  the  ability 
of  dogma  to  protect  itself  is  an  increasing 
interest  in  the  Church  which  never  left  it 
wholly  unguarded  by  "  observance,"  in  the 
Church  whose  Protestantism  was  never  more 
than  partial  ;  who  protested  only  against  the 
abuses  of  the  Catholic  idea,  not  against  this 
idea  itself  ;  and  who,  in  this  moderate  spirit, 
sought  to  entrench  a  moderate  amount  of  dog- 
ma in  a  moderate  amount  of  ecclesiasticism, 
enough  dogma  to  make  a  firm  creed,  in  enough 
ecclesiasticism  to  take  care  of  it.  With  the  ex- 
isting religious  outlook  it  is  natural — to  me  it 
seems  inevitable  —  that  religious  men  and 
women  should  look  to  this  Church  of  the 
Middle  Way  as  a  possible  refuge,  and  even  as 


I02  The  Religion  of  Christ 

a  possible  "  reconciler  of  Christendom."  Have 
we  not  been  told  that  it  is  that  very  Freedom 
whom  the  twentieth  century  reverences  that 
turns  to  scorn  the  **  falsehood  of  extremes  "  ? 
Is  not  the  **  Middle  Way  "  not  only  the  ex- 
pedient way,  but  the  true  way  of  liberty  ?  The 
Via  Media  in  general  has  always  been  well 
spoken  of,  and  the  history  of  the  Anglican 
Church — a  term  which,  as  I  use  it,  covers,  of 
course,  all  the  branches  of  this  Church — must 
be  of  profound  interest  to  all  who  cannot  re- 
sign the  hope  of  that  far-off  divine  event,  the 
evolution  of  a  Christian  Church  which  shall  be 
truly  Catholic,  nay,  truly  Christian,  for,  as 
Sabatier  says,  "  no  reform,  no  progress,  no 
perfecting,  can  raise  Christianity  above  itself ; 
that  is  to  say,  above  its  principle,  for  these  re- 
forms and  this  progress  only  bring  it  into 
closer  conformity  to  that  principle  ;  that  is, 
make  It  more  Christian." 

It  goes  without  saying  that,  even  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  It  was  not  the  Intention  of 
the  Anglican  Church  to  range  herself  with  out- 
and-out  Protestantism  as  represented   by  the 


The  Anglican  Church  103 

Puritans.  Protestant  she  was,  could  not  help 
being,  since  she  protested  against  constituted 
ecclesiastical  authority  ;  but  she  manifestly  in- 
tended to  direct  this  protest  exclusively  against 
what  she  considered  **  Romish  abuses  "  ;  and, 
while  protesting  against  the  dangers  arising 
from  a  too  great  dependence  upon  symbol,  was 
far  from  protesting  against  the  use  of  symbol. 
On  the  contrary,  she  placed  a  high  value  upon 
observance  and  conformity,  and  though,  neces- 
sarily, resting  her  protest  upon  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  by  no  means  intended  to 
exalt  private  judgment  to  the  prejudice  of  such 
observance  and  conformity. 

But  when  we  read  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  in 
conjunction  with  the  **  Creed  of  Plus  IV."  and 
with  the  "  Augsburg  Confession,"  It  needs  no 
theologian  come  from  the  grave  to  tell  us  that 
these  Articles  were  in  their  conception  dis- 
tinctly Protestant.  And  Protestant  they  have 
remained  in  spite  of  all  the  subtlety  which 
found  its  subtlest  expression  In  **  Tract  Ninety" ; 
Protestant,  not  more  by  their  negative  protest 
against    Pope   and    Purgatory,    pardons    and 


I04  The  Religion  of  Christ 

masses  and  images  and  relics,  than  by  their 
positive  assertions  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is 
a  '*  congregation  of  faithful  men  "  ;  that ''  gen- 
eral councils  may  and  have  erred  "  ;  that  **  Justi- 
fication by  Faith  only  is  a  most  wholesome 
doctrine,"  and,  perhaps  most  significant  of  all, 
that  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  the 
basis  of  Catholic  philosophy,  **  overthroweth 
the  nature  of  a  sacrament." 

But  though  these  Articles  were  and  are 
Protestant,  they  were  bound  up  with  a  Liturgy 
which  was  and  is  Catholic — the  "  Minister  "  of 
the  Articles  is  still  a  "  Priest  in  the  Church  of 
God,"  to  whom  is  "  committed  the  Holy 
Ghost  "  by  the  imposition  of  hands — ''  whose 
sins  thou  dost  forgive  they  are  forgiven  :  and 
whose  sins  thou  dost  retain,  they  are  retained," 
— and  not  all  the  wisdom  and  skill  of  the 
framers  of  the  Articles,  a  wisdom  and  skill 
emphasised  by  time,  has  been  able  to  prevent 
the  difficulties  arising  from  even  the  most  con- 
scientious attempt  to  sit  upon  two  stools  at 
once. 

These    difficulties    are    familiar   ones, —  the 


The  Anglican  Church  105 

well-known  epigram  as  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land's "  Calvinistic  Articles,  Popish  Liturgy, 
and  Arminian  Clergy  "  was  Chatham's,  was  it 
not  ?  It  has  been,  of  course,  inevitable  that  a 
Church  whose  statement  of  faith  and  whose 
form  of  worship  are  thus  the  outgrowth  of 
opposing  ideas  should  be  open  to  many  attacks 
from  without  and  many  perturbations  from 
within.  In  spite,  however,  of  these  attacks  and 
these  perturbations,  the  Church  has  faithfully 
continued  her  attempt  to  reconcile  the  ap- 
parently irreconcilable,  the  importance  of  out- 
ward conformity  and  the  sacredness  of  inward 
conviction  ;  the  authority  of  a  divinely  con- 
stituted "  instrument  of  salvation "  and  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  And 
however  one  may  be  inclined  to  estimate  the 
degree  of  success  which  has  attended  this  at- 
tempt, the  attempt  itself  has  been  rendered 
profoundly  interesting  by  the  fact  that  it  has 
had  the  support  of  the  very  wise,  the  very 
learned,  the  truly  spiritually-minded  ;  and  by 
the  further  fact,  revealed  in  the  study  of  this 
Church's  history,  that  she  has  found  in   her 


io6  The  Religion  of  Christ 

apparent  source  of  weakness  a  real  source  of 
strength,  and  that  the  great  vitality  which  she 
has  shown  in  the  past,  and  shows  In  the 
present,  is  largely  due  to  the  peculiarity  which 
her  opponents  call  her  "  fundamental  Incon- 
sistency," and  which  she  herself  terms  her 
"  comprehension." 

Open  to  attacks  both  from  Rome  and 
Geneva,  always  engaged  In  an  Internal  strug- 
gle to  prevent  her  high-churchmen  from 
becoming  out-and-out  Catholics,  and  her  low- 
churchmen  from  becoming  out-and-out  Protest- 
ants, she  has  found  in  her  double  nature  a 
protection  both  from  external  accusation  and 
internal  dissension.  When  Rome  has  taken 
occasion  to  point  out  that  a  Church  which  be- 
gan Its  Independent  existence  by  the  sin  of 
schism,  by  a  protest  against  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority, Is  obviously  a  Protestant  Church  and 
should  not  call  Itself  Catholic,  she  has  an- 
swered that  she  protested  only  against  human 
error  on  behalf  of  the  true  Catholic  and  Apos- 
tolic Church,  and  has  called  attention  to  the 
undeniable  Catholicism  of  her  Liturgy.     When 


The  Anglican  Church  107 

Dissent  has  taken  occasion  to  point  out  that 
a  Church  which  has  been  practically  disloyal 
to  the  Protestant  idea  that  Justification  is  by 
Faith  only,  by  inward  conviction  and  not  by 
outward  observance,  is  obviously  a  Catholic 
Church  and  ought  not  to  call  itself  Protestant, 
she  has  answered  that  sound  doctrine  has  al- 
ways been  her  main  concern,  and  has  called 
attention  to  the  undeniable  Protestantism  of 
her  Articles.  And  when  certain  of  her  own 
children  have  been  led,  by  the  exigencies  of 
logic,  to  the  conclusion  that,  in  spite  of  ap- 
pearances, a  Church  cannot  be  at  the  same 
time  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  and  have 
therefore  become,  according  to  their  leading, 
either  ''  Romanists  "  or  "  Dissenters  "  ;  she 
has  seen  them  depart  from  her  fold  with 
sorrow, — sorrow  mingled,  in  the  former  case, 
with  wrath,  and  in  the  latter,  with  contempt ; — 
but  none  the  less  steadily  has  she  continued 
her  attempt  to  keep  that  slippery  Middle  Way 
which  they  have  eschewed,  mightily  sustained 
therein  by  the  spectacle,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  a  reactionary  Roman  Church,  and,  on  the 


io8  The  Religion  of  Christ 

other,  of  a  veritable  riot  of  dissent.  And,  in 
spite  of  desertions  to  the  right  and  to  the  left, 
she  has  never  shown  greater  vigour,  relatively 
to  the  other  branches  of  the  Christian  Church, 
than  she  shows  to-day. 

All  this  seems  to  me  true.  But  it  also  seems 
to  me  true  that  in  the  very  cause  of  this  pre- 
sent-day relative  vigour  of  the  English  Church 
lies  hidden  a  greater  menace  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  her  double  nature,  and  thereby  to  her 
peculiar  individuality,  than  she  has  ever  yet 
encountered.  Never  having  been  Protestant 
enough  to  lay  sole  stress  upon  dogma,  she  is 
less  perturbed  by  the  disintegration  of  dogma 
than  are  her  purely  Protestant  neighbours,  and 
herself  taking  refuge  more  and  more  in  her  re- 
formed Catholicism,  she  offers  this  refuge  to 
those,  who,  troubled  by  the  tottering  of  dog- 
matic structures,  are  yet  not  prepared  to  go  all 
the  way,  and  to  seek  protection  from  Roman 
Catholicism.  And  the  offer  is  frequently  ac- 
cepted. Never  has  her  position  as  a  half- 
way house  stood  the  Anglican  Church  in 
better  stead.     But  if  this  half-way  house  be- 


The  Anglican  Church  109 

comes  any  more  divided  against  itself  than  it 
is  at  present  how  shall  it  stand  ?  And  how, 
under  the  existing  conditions  of  religious 
thought,  shall  it  avoid  such  increasing  divi- 
sion ?  The  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  but 
they  have  been  grinding  steadily  upon  Protest- 
antism since  the  sixteenth  century,  and  circum- 
stances which  in  the  past  have  favoured  the 
''comprehension "  of  the  English  Church, 
favour  it  no  longer.  The  two  stools  upon 
which  she  originally  planted  herself  are  being 
drawn  farther  and  farther  apart,  —  it  would 
seem  as  if  she  must  in  the  end  hold  defin- 
itely to  one  or  the  other.  Which  does  she 
really  value  most, — her  Catholicism  or  her 
Protestantism  ? 

It  is  natural  that  her  counsels  on  this  point 
should  be  divided,  for  while  she  owes  her  ex- 
istence to  her  Protestantism,  is  it  not  to  her 
Catholicism  that  she  owes  the  vigorous  con- 
tinuance of  her  existence  ?  Certainly  it  is  to 
her  Catholicism  that  she  owes  that  elasticity 
which  has  protected  men  of  great  intelligence 
and  learning  from  the  consequences  of  their 


J  lo  The  Religion  of  Christ 

intelligence  and  learning ;  which  has  even  pro- 
tected men  of  great  intellectual  integrity  and 
spiritual  discernment  from  the  consequences  of 
their  integrity  and  discernment.  One  appre- 
ciates the  protective  power,  even  in  a  modified 
form,  of  the  Catholic  idea  of  a  divinely  con- 
stituted authoritative  Church,  when  one  reads 
treatises  in  which  good  and  honest  men  care- 
fully discuss  how  far  sons  of  the  Church  are 
justified  in  holding  beliefs  **  contrary  to  their 
profession,"  In  appearing  to  accept  what  their 
private  judgment  repudiates,  and  in  ''  silently 
acquiescing"  in  doctrines  which  they  cannot 
audibly  defend.  One  appreciates  the  protec- 
tive power  of  this  Idea  anew  when  one  beholds 
Stanley  a  high  dignitary  In  a  Church  which 
officially  declares  that  **  In  every  person  born 
into  this  world  the  flesh  deserveth  God's  wrath 
and  damnation  "  ;  that  *'  they  that  presume  to 
say,  that  every  man  shall  be  saved  by  the  Law 
or  Sect  which  he  professeth,  so  that  he  be  dil- 
igent to  frame  his  life  according  to  that  Law 
and  the  light  of  nature,"  are  "  to  be  had  ac- 
cursed " ;  that  man   since    the    fall    of    Adam 


The  Anglican  Church  1 1 1 

"  cannot  turn  and  prepare  himself,  by  his  own 
natural  strength  and  good  works,  to  faith  and 
calling  upon  God''  \  nay  that  ''works  done  be- 
fore the  grace  of  Christ  are  not  pleasant  to 
God,"  but  "  we  doubt  not  have  the  nature  of 
sin"  ;  and  which  recognises  the  power  of  ''the 
devil "  to  make  use  of  "  the  Sentence  of  God's 
Predestination"  to  "thrust  curious  and  carnal 
persons  into  desperation."  And  one  appreci- 
ates perhaps  more  fully  still  the  power  of  the 
idea  of  "  the  Church"  when  one  contemplates 
the  faithful  allegiance  to  this  Church  of  minds 
such  as  Jowett's  or  Arnold's,  and  knows  not 
whether  most  to  admire  the  forbearance  of  the 
son  toward  the  persecuting  Church,  or  the  for- 
bearance of  the  Church  toward  the  persecuting 
son. 

But,  while  thus  profiting  by  the  Catholic  idea, 
the  Anglican  Church  has  been  able  hitherto 
to  avoid  the  full  consequences  of  this  idea. 
For  until  recent  times  circumstances  have  pro- 
tected her  from  these  consequences.  During 
the  past  hundred  years,  however,  the  logic  of 
Catholicism  and  the   logic   of    Protestantism 


112  The  Religion  of  Christ 

have  alike  been  demonstrating  the  truth  of  the 
proposition  that  ''  there  is  no  middle  term  be- 
tween the  rule  of  the  letter  and  the  rule  of  the 
spirit "  ^ :  Catholic  logic  has  resulted  in  the 
dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope,  and 
Protestant  logic  has  resulted  in  the  discredit- 
ing of  all  dogma  as  dogma.  Catholicism  has 
become  more  than  ever  a  Religion  of  Authority, 
while  Protestantism  is  fast  transforming  itself 
into  a  Religion  of  the  Spirit,  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  is  fast  recognising,  as  it  puts  aside  the 
external  authority  of  the  Book  as  it  has  already 
put  aside  the  external  authority  of  the  Church, 
that  it  is,  of  necessity,  and  in  its  very  nature, 
a  Religion  of  the  Spirit. 

Here,  in  the  change  of  attitude  toward  the 
Bible,  lies  the  difficulty  which,  so  far  as  one 
can  see,  must  be  met  by  the  Anglican  Church. 
Hitherto  Protestantism,  as  well  as  Catholicism, 
has  been  a  Religion  of  Authority,  and  the 
Church  of  *'  comprehension  "  has  been  able  to 
help  out  her  "  limited  infallibility  "  as  an  insti- 
tution by  the  absolute  infallibility  of  the  Book. 

'  Sabatier:    The  Religions  of  Authority, 


The  Anglican  Church  113 

But  this  support  has  failed.  Protestantism 
has  practically  given  up  the  resort  to  external 
authority,  and,  if  the  Anglican  Church  remains 
Protestant,  she  must  accept  the  inevitable  de- 
velopment of  Protestantism, — its  development, 
sooner  or  later,  into  a  Religion  of  the  Spirit. 
But  can  she  do  this  and  retain  her  elaborate 
ecclesiastical  organisation  ?  How  far  is  such 
an  organisation  possible  without  a  definite 
dogmatic  foundation  ?  Was,  or  was  not,  Dis- 
raeli right  when  he  replied  to  certain  heterdox 
utterances  of  Stanley's :  '*  Yes,  Mr.  Dean, 
but  you  must  remember,  no  dogma  —  no 
Dean  "  ? 

And  these  questions  are  but  the  leaders  of 
many  consequent  questions.  Suppose  Disraeli 
was  right,  and  suppose  the  Church,  meeting 
this  dilemma,  decides  that,  rather  than  part 
with  her  dogma  and  the  structure  which  it  sup- 
ports, she  will  part  with  her  Protestantism, 
how  will  she  avoid  the  logical  conclusion  of 
her  brilliant  son,  the  clear-headed  and  clear- 
souled  Newman,  that  to  protect  dogma  against 
the    disintegrating   force   of    human    thought 

8 


114  The  Religion  of  Christ 

nothing  will  suffice  short  of  an  infallible 
ecclesiasticism  ? 

If  the  ritualists  are  destined  to  make 
good  their  contention  that  the  Anglican  Church 
belongs  to  them,  will  it  not  prove  their  best,  if 
not  their  only,  policy,  to  burn  those  trouble- 
some Articles,  heal  the  breach,  which,  after  all, 
is  only  of  yesterday,  and  find  their  way  back 
into  that  powerful  Church  of  history  which  ad- 
mits no  embarrassing  doubts  of  its  infallibility, 
and  is  not  only  capable  of  taking  care  of  dog- 
ma, but  is  even  prepared  to  reinterpret  it  (still 
infallibly)  in  terms  of  modern  thought,  thus 
enabling  the  Holy  Spirit  to  catch  up — approx- 
imately— with  the  advancing  spirit  of  man  ? 

But  —  yet  more  questions  —  if  the  High 
Church  is  driven,  or  led,  to  this  policy,  what 
will  become  of  the  Low  Church,  and  the  Broad 
Church  ?  Will  the  Church  of  England  follow 
the  Anglican  Church  ?  It  is  hard  to  believe 
this.  There  is  no  question  that  the  Low 
Church  would  be  loth  to  part  with  its  Protest- 
antism, and  as  for  the  Broad  Church  ? — I 
wonder  if  it  is  fair  to  take  the  Master  of  Balliol 


The  Anglican  Church  115 

as  its  exponent  ? — if  so,  here  are  certain  of  his 
obiter  dicta  : 

"  We  shall  never  return  to  the  belief  in  facts  which  are 
disproved,  e.g.,  miracles,  the  narratives  of  creation — of 
Mt.  Sinai.  And  we  shall  never  return  to  the  belief  in 
dogmas,  which  belong  to  another  age  and  to  ourselves 
are  mere  words." 

"  It  is,  however,  possible  that  ideas  may  again  take 
possession  of  men  in  the  same  absorbing  manner  in  which 
they  did  of  old." 

"  Natural  religion  should  so  leaven  and  penetrate 
Christianity  (without  the  words  natural  religion  ever 
appearing)  that  the  doubtful  points  and  doctrines  of 
Christianity  should  drop  off  of  themselves." 

*'  It  is  not  with  the  very  words  of  Christianity,  but 
with  the  best  form  of  Christianity  as  the  world  has 
made  it,  or  can  make  it,  or  will  receive  it,  that  we 
are  concerned  to-day." 

"  A  new  religion  ?  Not  exactly  so,  but  people  must 
believe  more  strongly  in  a  few  truths  which  we  all 
acknowledge,  and  they  must  apply  them  more  vigorously 
to  practical  life." 

'*  1  think  that  I  believe  more  and  more  in  Christianity 
—  not  in  miracles  or  hell  or  verbal  inspiration  or  atone- 
ment, but  in  living  for  others  and  in  going  about  doing 
good." 

"  Apostolical  succession — a  sine  qua  nan  ;  how  can  that 
matter  to  any  one  who  considers  what  religion  is  ? " 

"  The  church  is  in  a  bad  way  in  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury, but  not  worse  than  it  has  always  been.  I  suppose 
that  while  using  its  services,  we  ought  not   to  set  our 


ii6  The  Religion  of  Christ 

hearts  either  upon  the  church  of  the  present,  or  the 
church  of  the  future,  but  to  fix  our  minds  upon  God  and 
upon  our  own  lives." 

If  such  sayings  as  these  may  fairly  be  taken 
as  representative  of  the  spirit  of  the  Broad 
Church,  it  does  not  seem  impossible  that  it 
may  yet  prove  that  *'  a  congregation  of  faithful 
men "  may  be  bound  together  by  a  purely 
spiritual  bond,  and  if  so  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land may  survive  the  Anglican  Church. 

Again,  time  alone  will  show.  The  old  wine- 
skins are  very  precious,  and,  though  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  new  wine  must  be  put  into  new 
wine-skins  lest  it  burst  the  old,  yet  many  will 
hold  with  Luke  that  **  no  man,  having  drunk 
old  wine,  desireth  new,  for  he  saith,  The  old  is 
good."  ' 

But  the  Master's  own  word  was  for  the 
new  wine  and  the  fresh  skins,  and  nowhere  in 
all  Christendom  has  the  Master  found  more 
faithful  followers  than  in  the  Broad  Church. 
One  may  well  ask  whether  these  faithful  fol- 
lowers  may   not    show    themselves   ready,    if 

'Luke  v.,  37-39. 


The  Anglican  Church  1 1 7 

necessary,  to  obey  his  injunction  to  renounce 
all, — even  precious  forms  and  formularies, — 
that  they  may  rise  and  follow  him. 

And  follow  him.  For  the  study  of  Christ- 
ian origins  is  revealing  more  and  more  plainly 
that  the  Founder  of  Christianity  —  he  who 
asked,  *'  and  why  of  your  own  selves  judge  ye 
not  what  is  right  ?  "  ^ — was  not  the  Founder  of  / 
the  Christian  Church  of  history.  May  he  not 
yet  prove  to  be  the  Founder  of  that  holy 
Church  universal,  for  which  the  Church  of 
England  so  nobly  prays,  wherein  "  all  who 
profess  and  call  themselves  Christians  may  be 
led  into  the  way  of  truth  and  hold  the  faith  in 
unity  of  spirit,  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and  in 
righteousness  of  life  "  ? 

*  Luke  xii.,  57.  t 


VII 

JESUS  OF  NAZARETH 

"For  every  high  priest,  being  taken  from  among  men,  is  appointed 
for  men  in  things  pertaining  to  God  that  he  may  offer  both  gifts  and 
sacrifices  for  sins:  who  can  bear  gently  with  the  ignorant  and  erring, 
for  that  he  himself  also  is  compassed  with  infirmity  ;  and  by  reason 
thereof  is  bound,  as  for  the  people  so  also  for  himself,  to  offer  for 
sins.  And  no  man  taketh  the  honour  unto  himself,  but  when  he  is 
called  of  God,  even  as  was  Aaron.  So  Christ  also  glorified  not  him- 
self to  be  made  a  high  priest,  but  he  that  spake  unto  him, 

"  Thou  art  my  Son, 

"  This  day  have  I  begotten  thee: 
as  he  saith  also  in  another  place, 

"  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever 

*'  After  the  order  of  Melchizedek. 

Who  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  having  offered  up  prayers  and  suppli- 
cations with  strong  crying  and  tears  unto  him  that  was  able  to  save 
him  from  death,  and  having  been  heard  for  his  godly  fear,  though 
he  was  a  Son,  yet  learned  obedience  by  the  things  which  he  suffered  ; 
and  having  been  made  perfect,  he  became,  unto  all  them  that  obey 
him,  the  author  of  eternal  salvation,  named  of  God  a  high  priest  after 
the  order  of  Melchizedek." — The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

**  T^H  E  Founder  of  Christianity."   I  was  about 
to  say  that  it  is  wonderful  how  much  may 
be  said  concerning  Christianity  with  only  an  oc- 
casional reference  to  its  Founder  !   But,  in  truth, 

ii8 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  119 

this  is  not  wonderful  at  all.  For  Christianity, 
as  we  use  the  word,  includes  both  what  I  under- 
stand Lessing  to  mean  by  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion,  that  is,  the  Christian  body  of  doctrine 
and  Christian  ecclesiasticism,  and  also  what  I 
understand  him  to  mean  by  the  Religion  of 
Christ,  that  is,  the  Christian  way  of  life  ;  and 
we  have  been  hitherto  mainly  concerned  with 
the  former,  with  dogma  and  ecclesiasticism, 
whereas  the  Founder  of  Christianity  seems 
to  have  been  mainly  concerned  with  the  latter, 
with  a  way  of  life. 

Nay,  more  than  this.  Suppose  it  were 
possible  for  us  to  clear  our  minds  of  those 
prepossessions,  both  conscious  and  uncon- 
scious, which  so  greatly  affect  our  under- 
standing, and  to  read  the  Christian  Gospels 
simply  and  intelligently,  as  we  would  read  them 
if  we  had  never  read  them  before  ;  suppose  it 
were  possible  for  us  to  approach  these  records 
of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  with  the  free- 
dom of  mind,  the  disinterestedness,  with  which 
we  approach  the  records  of  the  life  and  teach- 
ing of  other  great  spiritual  leaders  :  we  should, 


I20  The  Religion  of  Christ 

I  think,  be  struck  by  the  circumstance  that 
whenever  we  come  upon  anything  in  the  story 
which  has  to  do  with  dogmatism  or  ecclesiast- 
icism,  Jesus  is  generally  found  in  an  attitude 
of  opposition. 

And  we  do  come  upon  much  of  this 
nature.  It  was  not  an  irreligious  commun- 
ity that  Jesus  faced.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  a  community  preoccupied  with  religious 
ideas,  a  community  full  of  zeal,  faithful  to  its 
convictions  and  rigid  in  carrying  them  out ;  an 
orthodoxy  as  assured  as  that  of  Torquemada 
or  Cartwright.  It  was  not  irreligion  which 
crucified  Jesus,  it  was  religion — of  a  kind, — of 
that  kind  which  finds  its  natural  expression  in 
formulas  and  observances,  and  stays  itself  upon 
external  rather  than  upon  internal  supports. 
Hence  its  inevitable  antao^onism  to  the  reliction 
of  Jesus,  which  was  plainly  of  another  nature. 
His  faith  in  the  immediate  support  of  God 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  sufficient  stay.  It 
was  a  faith  which  required  no  external  rules, 
since,  being  itself  real,  it  inevitably  realised 
itself  in  action  ;  a  faith  too  profound  to  dog- 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  121 

matise,  too  simple  to  need  formularies,  yet  a 
faith  which  gave  to  its  possessor  an  authority 
of  which  the  scribes  knew  nothing. 

**  Whence  hath  this  man  these  things  ?  "  ^  ask 
these  sons  of  them  that  aforetime  slew  the 
prophets.  The  prophets  would  not  have  asked 
the  question.  The  religion  of  the  prophets! 
was  mere  theism — there  is  no  denying  that — n 
but  if  it  lacked  **  extent  "  it  did  not  lack  ''in- 
tensity." They  knew  whereof  they  spoke  when 
they  declared  *'  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect 
peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee,  because 
he  trusteth  in  thee."  **  And  the  work  of  right- 
eousness shall  be  peace ;  and  the  effect  of 
righteousness,  quietness  and  assurance  for 
ever. 

But  even  among  the  chosen  people  the  re- 
ligion of  the  scribes  had  overlaid  the  religion 
of  the  prophets,  encrusting  it  with  the  tradition 
of  men.  And  when  that  Prophet  came  upon 
whom  "  the  whole  fountain  of  the  Holy  Spirit " 
descended  saying  "  My  Son  in  all  the  prophets 
have  I  looked  forth  to  thee  that  thou  shouldst 

'Markvi.,  2.  '•^  Isaiah xxvi.,  3  ;  xxxii.,  17. 


122  The  Religion  of  Christ 

come  and  that  I  should  find  in  thee  my  place  of 
rest,"  ^  and  reasserted  the  prophetic  message, 

"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 
Because  he  annointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the 
poor: 

He  hath  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives, 

And  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind, 

To  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 

To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord  " ' ; — 

when  there  appeared  this  last  and  greatest  of 
the  prophets,  the  religion  of  the  scribes  met 
him  with  the  demand,  ''  By  whose  authority?"^ 
and  declared — "this  man  blasphemeth."* 

The  religion  of  Jesus  seems  in  truth  to  have 
been  no  more  dogmatic  than  the  religion  of 
the  prophets  ;  seems  to  have  been  indeed  like 
,  theirs, — *'  mere  theism."  At  least  he  certainly 
\  declares  that  obedience  from  the  heart  to  the 
familiar  commandments  of  his  ancestors. 
Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,  with  all  thy 
heart  and  soul  and  mind,  and  thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself,  is  sufficient  to  secure  the 
inheritance  of  eternal  life  ;  wherein  he  differs 

'  The  Gospel  According  to  the  Hebrews. 

^  Isaiah  Ixi.,  i,  2;     Luke  iv.,  18,  19. 

3  Mark  ix.,  28.  ■*  Matt,  ix.,  3. 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  123 

from  the  Athanasian  Creed.  And  the  rehgion 
of  Jesus  seems  also  to  have  been  quite  indiffer- 
ent to  many  of  the  observances,  which  his 
countrymen  had  "  received  to  hold."  Brought 
to  book  again  and  again  for  breaking  the  Sab- 
bath, he  defends  himself  by  the  quiet  assertion, 
**  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not 
man  for  the  Sabbath  "  ;  an  assertion  which  lays 
its  axe  to  the  root  of  all  sacramentalism.  And 
the  act  by  which  he  introduced  his  preaching 
in  Jerusalem  can  hardly  be  construed  favoura- 
bly to  Jewish  ecclesiasticism. 

"  And  they  come  to  Jerusalem  :  and  he  entered  into 
the  temple,  and  began  to  cast  out  them  that  sold  and 
them  that  bought  in  the  temple,  and  overthrew  the  tables 
of  the  money-changers,  and  the  seats  of  them  that  sold 
the  doves  ;  and  he  would  not  suffer  that  any  man  should 
carry  a  vessel  through  the  temple."  ' 

Was  this  merely  a  burst  of  somewhat  futile 
indignation  against  the  existence  within  the 
temple  of  a  traffic  necessary  to  the  mainten- 
ance of  its  ritual  ?  Or  was  it  a  blow  at  this 
ritual  itself,  at  the  emphasis  laid  upon  ''  burnt- 

*Mark  xi.,  15,  16. 


124  The  Religion  of  Christ 

offering  and  sin-offering  "  in  *'  a  house  of 
prayer " ? 

It  was  a  bold  deed  for  an  obscure  provincial ; 
a  somewhat  violent  deed  for  the  preacher  of 
gentle  methods.  Was  it,  by  chance,  an  open 
denunciation  of  the  kind  of  religion  which  the 
temple-worship  had  come  to  represent  ?  It 
would  seem  as  if  the  priests  and  the  scribes 
took  this  view  of  it,  for  Mark  goes  on  to  tell 
us  that  it  was  from  this  time  that  they  sought 
how  they  might  destroy  him. 

No  ;  neither  dogmatism  nor  ecclesiasticism 
may  prudently  look  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  for 
direct  support.  For  dogmatism  and  ecclesi- 
asticism are  born,  not  of  spiritual  strength,  but 
of  spiritual  weakness  ;  and  that  Christianity 
has  in  the  past  placed  its  main  reliance  upon 
dogma  and  ritual  testifies,  not  to  spiritual 
strength,  but  to  spiritual  weakness. 

Very  true,  many  will  admit,  and  in  just  this 
truth  lies  the  hopelessness  of  the  attempt  to 
get  rid  of  dogma  and  ritual.  Man  is  spiritually 
weak,  and  therefore  must  have  these  helps. 
We  may  wish  it  were  otherwise,  but  we  are 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  125 

as  we  are,  weak  and  erring  and  fearful  ;  blind 
and  deaf  and  lame  ;  our  feeble  faith  must  have 
the  support  of  intellectual  and  material  sym- 
bol. The  lesson  of  history  is  plain  ;  he  is  but 
a  dreamer  who  disregards  it.  "  Men  ever  were 
and  ever  will  be  men,"  says  wise  Bishop  Bur- 
net, and  it  is  vain  to  demand  of  human  nature 
that  of  which  human  nature  is  incapable.  It 
may  well  be  that  strong  faith,  like  strong  love 
(are  they  not  really  one  ?),  needs  no  external 
support,  but  it  is  useless  to  expect  of  the  aver- 
age man  and  woman  a  faith  so  strong,  so  sim- 
ple, so  secure,  that  its  only  necessary  dogmas 
are  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of  man  ;  its 
only  necessary  ritual  ''  the  going  about  doing 
good."  This,  say  these  apologists  for  dogma 
and  ritual,  is  the  testimony  of  experience,  the 
testimony  of  history  and  psychology,  those 
teachers  to  whom  the  twentieth  century  makes 
such  constant  appeal. 

What  answer  can  be  made  to  this  defence  of 
symbol,  intellectual  and  material,  by  one  who 
must  indeed  believe  that  history  and  psy- 
chology furnish  the  only  safe  foundation  upon 


126  The  Religion  of  Christ 

which  to  build  ?  Well,  in  the  first  place,  so 
far  as  dogma  and  ritual  prove  genuine  helps  to 
the  faith  that  worketh  righteousness,  no  one, 
as  I  have  said  more  than  once  before,  need 
quarrel  with  them.  Let  those  who  find  them 
helpful  make  use  of  them.  Only  let  them 
never  forget  that  they  are  making  use  of  sym- 
bol, and  that  it  is  the  nature  of  symbol  to  put 
itself  in  the  place  of  that  for  which  it  stands  ; 
to  take  to  itself  an  emphasis  and  a  sacredness 
which  does  not  belong  to  it,  and,  forgetting 
that  it  is  a  means  to  an  end,  to  declare  itself  a 
sine  qua  non.  This  is  pre-eminently  the  testi- 
mony of  experience,  this  is  pre-eminently  the 
teaching  of  history  and  psychology ;  and  this 
is,  plainly  enough,  Lessing's  meaning  when  he 
declares  that  the  Christian  Religion  may  be 
tried,  and  has  been  tried,  apart  from  the 
Religion  of  Christ. 

Commenting  upon  this  saying  of  Lessing's, 
Jowett  remarks  : 

"  It  seems  rather  boastful  and  extravagant,  but  it  ex- 
presses the  spirit  in  which  any  new  movement  for  the 
improvement  of  theology  must  be  carried  on.     It  means 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  127 

that  Christians  should  no  longer  be  divided  into  Church- 
men and  Nonconformists,  or  even  into  Christians  and 
non-Christians,  but  that  the  best  men  everywhere  should 
know  themselves  to  be  partakers  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  as 
He  imparts  Himself  to  them  in  various  degrees.  It  means 
that  the  old  fooHsh  quarrels  of  science  with  religion,  or 
of  criticism  with  religion,  should  for  ever  cease,  and  that 
we  should  recognise  all  truth,  based  on  fact,  to  be 
acceptable  to  the  God  of  truth.  ...  It  means  that 
we  should  regard  all  persons  as  Christians,  even  if  they 
come  before  us  with  other  names,  if  they  are  doing  the 
works  of  Christ."  ' 

And  since  the  opinions  of  Jowett  are  of 
doubtful  orthodoxy,  let  me  quote  one  other 
opinion  from  a  writer  whose  orthodoxy  I  have 
never  heard  questioned,  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  ''  By  this  shall  all  men  know 
that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to 
another."  ^ 

And  in  the  second  place,  are  the  teachings 
of  history  and  psychology  so  wholly  discour- 
aging as  to  the  spiritual  capacity  of  man  ?  It  is 
true  that,  in  studying  the  evolution  of  even 
the  greater  religions  of  the  world,  we  find 
everywhere  more  or  less  externalism,  but  is  it 

^  Life  and  Letters  of  Benianiin  Jo-wett^  vol.  ii.,  p.  362. 
*John  xiii.,  35. 


128  The  Religion  of  Christ 

not  equally  true  that  the  *'  white  wings  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  for  ever  brooding  o'er  the  heads 
of  men,  are  seen  of  many,  and  lo,  the  heavens 
are  opened  unto  them  ;  is  it  not  equally  true 
that  everywhere  we  find  those  who,  beholding 
the  heavenly  vision,  are  obedient  to  it  from 
the  heart,  and  by  this  obedience  are  freed 
from  bondage  to  form  and  formulary  ?  And 
is  it  not  also  true  that  the  spiritual  power  de- 
rived from  such  vision  is  always  felt  and  ac- 
knowledged by  average  humanity  ?  that  it 
is  impossible  for  even  the  most  rigid  dogmatist 
or  ritualist  to  escape  its  appeal  ?  Spirit  recog- 
nises the  power  of  spirit,  and,  if  it  does  not  trust, 
it  must  fear  ;  if  it  does  not  love,  it  must  hate ; 
if  it  does  not  accept,  it  must  reject.  It  has 
been  the  wont  of  average  humanity  to  do 
both ;  to  bear  witness  to  the  mio^ht  of  the 
free  spirit,  first  by  persecution,  and  then  by 
devotion  ;  to  slay  the  prophets  and  then  to 
build  and  garnish  their  tombs.  And  the  su- 
preme example  of  such  faith  in  all  its  sim- 
plicity, strength,  and  freedom  was  crucified 
and  deified,  executed  as  a  criminal,  and  ex- 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  129 

alted  as  a  god.     Alike   by  the  one  act  and 
by  the  other,  by  fear  and  by  love,  did  human-, 
ity  recognise  the  compelling   power  of  "  the 
Spirit  of  God,"  and  alike  by  the  one  act  and  | 
the  other  did  humanity — so  I  cannot  but  be-  ' 
lieve — sacrifice  a  saviour.     For  by  the  deifica- 
tion  of  Jesus   did  humanity   seek  to  deprive  j  "iL 
itself  of  its  own  best  hope,  of  its  noblest  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  that  God   is  with  it.     No-  ( 
where  is  the  faithlessness   of  the   children  of 
God  more  pathetically  written  in  the  history  , 
of    mankind    than    in    their    readiness  —  nay, 
their   eagerness — to  transform   the    Man    of 
Nazareth  into  a  divinity. 

The  process  began  almost  at  once;  the  great- 
est of  the  Master's  followers  lent  it  their  aid, — 
even  Paul,  even  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  The  one  was  too  much  a  Pharisee, 
the  other  too  much  a  Platonist,  to  hold  to  the 
simplicity  and  the  purity  which  is  in  Christ. 
The  second  Adam,  with  his  metaphysical  vic- 
tory over  sin  and  death,  has,  throughout  the 
centuries,  obscured  the  Galilean  teacher  with 
his    message   of   strength   and  comfort  ;    and 


130  The  Religion  of  Christ 

the  Logos  Christ  of  *'John"  has  blurred  the 
human  figure  of  the  Jesus  Christ  of  the 
Synoptics. 

"  And  when  he  was  come  into  Jerusalem  all  the  city 
was  stirred,  saying,  *  Who  is  this  ?  '  And  the  multitude 
said,  *  This  is  the  prophet  Jesus  from  Nazareth  of 
Galilee.' " ' 

A  few  centuries  later,  when  the  question 
was  asked,  *'  Who  is  this  ? "  the  multitudes 
answered : 

"  This  is  God  and  Man,  God  of  the  substance  of  the 
Father,  begotten  before  the  world,  and  Man  of  the  sub- 
stance of  his  mother,  born  in  the  world.  Perfect  God 
and  perfect  Man.  Equal  to  the  Father  as  touching  his 
Godhead,  and  inferior  to  the  Father  as  touching  his 
Manhood;  who,  although  he  be  God  and  Man,  yet  he  is 
not  two  but  one  Christ.  One  not  by  conversion  of  the 
Godhead  into  Man,  but  by  taking  of  the  Manhood  into 
God.  .  .  .  This  is  the  Catholic  faith  which  except  a 
man  believe  he  cannot  be  saved."  * 

So,  to  my  seeing,  did  the  weakness  and  self- 
distrust  of  human  nature  abet  the  intellectual 
pride  of  theologian  and  philosopher  ;  so  did 
the  multitudes  willingly  substitute  the  dogma 
of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  for  the  inspiration  of 

*  Matt,  xxi.,  10,  II.  ^Athanasian  Creed. 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  131 

his  human  example  ;  the  saving  power  of  his 
death,  for  the  saving  power  of  his  life. 

And  yet  it  is  none  the  less  true  that,  through- 
out the  centuries,  there  have  been  faithful 
followers  of  the  Master  who  have  not  sought 
salvation  by  saying,  "  Lord,  Lord,"  but  who, 
encouraged  by  his  assurances  and  example  to 
believe  that  men  are  in  truth  the  children  of 
their  Father  in  heaven,  have  set  themselves 
very  simply  to  try  and  do  the  will  of  that 
Father  as  declared  by  His  Son  Jesus.  Through- 
out these  centuries  we  see  the  recurring  effort 
to  get  back  to  the  living  teaching,  to  reach 
through  metaphysical  speculation  about  Jesus, 
to  Jesus  himself,  and  wherever  this  effort  has 
shown  itself,  the  Life  has  still  been  the  light  of 
men.  For  all  who  share  the  faith  of  Jesus 
must  in  some  measure  share  his  power  ;  and 
every  one  who,  believing  on  him  as  a  re- 
deemer, has  proved  his  belief  by  striving  to 
enter  into  his  faith,  and  to  live  for  those  things 
for  which  he  lived,  has  proved  in  some  meas-  / 
ure  a  redeemer  to  those  about  him. 

And  to-day,  as  never  before  in  the  history  of 


132  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Christian  thought,  Is  visible  this  effort  to 
realise  the  actual  life  and  actual  teaching  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Partly  because  human  life 
Is  valued  as  never  before,  because  out  of  the 
idea  of  evolution  has  grown  an  Increasing  hope 
In  the  ultimate  possibilities  of  human  nature, 
an  Increaslnor  faith  In  Its  essential  worthiness 
and  dignity  ;  and  partly  because  the  advance 
in  knowledge  and  freedom  of  thought,  during 
the  past  hundred  years,  has  done  much  to 
draw  aside  the  veil  woven  of  tradition  and 
prejudice,  men  are  striving  as  never  before  to 
reverse  the  process  which  sought  to  separate 
them  from  the  love  of  God  which  was  In  Christ 
Jesus,  and  once  more  to  make  a  reality  of  the 
life  lived  in  Judaea  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 
From  many  a  watch-tower  the  watchmen  are 
telling  us  that  a  true  7^evival  of  Christianity  Is 
at  hand,  that  the  night  of  dogmatism  Is  far 
spent,  and  there  cometh  the  morning  of  a  liv- 
ing faith  ;  that 

"  Through  clouds  of  doubt  and  creeds  of  fear, 
A  light  is  breaking  calm  and  clear." 

And  nothing  In   the  present   movement  of 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  133 

Christian  thought  toward  a  ReHgion  of  the 
Spirit  is  more  marked  than  the  growing  dis- 
tinctness of  the  figure  which  Christianity,  for 
all  its  pre-occupation  with  dogma  and  ritual, 
has  ever  held  in  its  heart  of  hearts.  It  is 
indeed  as  if  **  beneath  some  mediaeval  fresco 
of  an  unreal  and  mystical  Christ  had  been 
freshly  laid  bare  the  features  of  the  man  of 
Nazareth."  ^ 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  attempt 
to  realise  the  human  life  of  Jesus  and  his  im- 
mediate followers  have  been  great,  too  great 
in  some  respects  ever  to  be  wholly  overcome. 
Under  the  most  favourable  conditions  the  hu- 
man mind  finds  it  hard  enough  thus  to  make 
real  conditions  of  life  and  thought  quite  unlike 
those  to  which  it  is  accustomed  ;  to  enter  into 
the  spirit  of  a  distant  age,  to  breath  its  social 
and  intellectual  atmosphere,  to  understand  its 
point  of  view.  And  in  the  case  of  Christian 
origins,  the  attempt  to  do  this  and  **  to  pene- 
trate through  the  radiant  haze  with  which 
Jesus    has    been    invested    by   tradition    and 

'  Francis  G.  Peabody  :  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question. 


134  The  Religion  of  Christ 

faith  "  ^  has  been  hampered  at  every  turn  by 
that  strongest  and  bHndest  of  forces,  —  re- 
Hgious  prejudice,  conscientious  /r^-judging. 
It  is  not  my  purpose  to  dwell  in  detail  upon 
the  effort  of  patient  scholarship  and  trained 
judgment,  illumined  by  imagination  and  in- 
sight, to  overcome  these  difficulties ;  but  con- 
sider for  a  moment  their  nature,  consider  for  a 
moment  what  conditions  of  life  and  thought 
this  scholarship  and  judgment  and  imagina- 
tion and  insight  must  strive  to  recreate  and 
understand. 

At  a  time  of  intense  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual excitement,  when  the  Jewish  national  life 
was  in  a  ferment  of  suppressed  sedition  and 
party  feeling  ;  when  the  long-cherished  hope 
of  a  national  deliverance  by  a  Messiah-king, 
anointed  by  the  God  of  Israel  Himself  for  the 
rescue  of  His  people  from  the  surrounding  na- 
tions, had  become  a  breathless  expectation  and 
at  the  appearance  of  a  new  teacher  all  men 
mused  in  their  hearts  whether  he  were  the 
Christ  or  not  ^ ;  at  a  time  when  at  the  voice  of 

'J.  Estlin  Carpenter:  The  First  Three  Gospels,     *  Luke  iii.,  15. 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  135 

one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  *'  Repent  ye,  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand !  "  **  multi- 
tudes " — Pharisees  and  Sadducees  as  well  as 
publicans  and  soldiers  —  flocked,  confessing 
their  sins,  to  a  baptism  which  should  save 
them  from  the  wrath  to  come,  demanding, 
*'  Master,  what  shall  we  do  ?  " — at  such  a  time 
there  appeared  from  among  the  peasant  popu- 
lation of  the  least  -  orthodox  district  of  this 
country  a  young  teacher,  a  carpenter  by  trade, 
who  took  up  the  message  of  the  silenced 
John,  **  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand," 
and  set  himself  to  teach  the  people  the  nature 
of  this  new  kingdom. 

This  teaching  was  altogether  oral,  altogether 
occasional ;  and  crowded  into  a  brief  period. 
It  was  addressed  to  a  multitude  largely  made 
up  of  the  least  -  reputable  classes  of  the  com- 
munity ;  a  multitude  excitable  and  credulous  to 
the  last  degree  ;  not  only  *'  predisposed,  by 
their  ignorance  of  natural  law,  to  believe  in 
prodigies,"  but  accustomed  to  demand  such 
prodigies  as  the  necessary  credentials  of  a 
teacher.     "  Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders 


136  The  Religion  of  Christ 

ye  will  in  no  wise  believe."^  For  our  know- 
ledge of  the  character  of  this  teaching  we  are 
dependent  upon  the  reports  of  this  multitude  ; 
dependent  wholly  upon  oral  tradition  handed 
down  by  those  who  listened  with  an  under- 
standing necessarily  varying  with  the  na- 
ture of  their  own  prepossessions  and  with 
the  degree  of  their  intelligence  and  sympathy 
with  its  ideas.  Of  the  various  narratives  of 
these  matters  which,  in  after  years,  many  took 
in  hand  to  draw  up,^  four  have  been  preserved 
to  us.  The  actual  authorship  of  these  is  un- 
known. Concerning  one  of  them,  the  Fourth, 
the  scholarship  of  to-day  declares  that  *'  it  can- 
not be  taken  as  historical  authority  in  the  ordi- 
ary  meaning  of  the  word  "  ;  that  although  *'  it  is 
not  altogether  devoid  of  a  real,  if  scarcely  re- 
cognisable, traditional  element,  it  can  hardly 
make  any  claim  to  be  considered  an  authority 
for  Jesus'  history."  ^  Concerning  the  three 
other    narratives,   we    know    only    that    they 

'  John  iv.,  48  ;  Mark  viii.,  11,  12. 
^  Luke  i.,  I. 

'  Adolf  Harnack  :  What  is  Christianity  ?  p.  19,  Saunders'  Trans- 
lation. 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  137 

were  written  from  forty  to  sixty  years  after 
the  death  of  the  teacher  whose  acts  and  words 
they  relate,  at  a  time  when  the  identification 
of  the  GaHlean  prophet  with  the  Messiah  had 
given  rise  to  the  tendency  to  conform  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life  and  the  form  of  his 
teaching  to  Jewish  prophecy,  ''  real  and  per- 
verted," in  an  age  absolutely  uncritical,  with 
no  sense  of  what  we  mean  by  literary  responsi- 
bility ;  in  an  age  when  *'  edification  was  the 
standard  of  credibility."  And  in  the  light 
of  this  knowledge  we  are  coming  to  perceive 
that  the  task  which  even  the  Synoptists  set 
themselves  was,  as  Dfr  Julicher  says,  ''  not  to 
understand  and  esthnate  the  historical  Jesus, 
but  to  believe  in  him,  to  love  him  above  all 
else  ;  to  teach  men  to  hope  in  him  "  ^  ;  and 
that  in  reading  the  First  and  Second  and 
Third,  as  well  the  Fourth  Gospel,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  their  authors  "  wrote  as 
men,  and  that  every  personality  is  a  mystery 
beyond  a  certain  point."  ^ 

Surely  if  we  do   consider  these  things  we 

^Adolf  Julicher  :  Introduction  to  the  Netv  Testa?ne7it,  1904. 


138  The  Religion  of  Christ 

shall  understand  better  what  earnest  study,  as- 
sisted by  judgment,  imagination,  and  insight, 
has  accomplished  in  enabling  us  to  recognise, 
in  some  measure  at  least,  what  would  be  the 
inevitable  characteristics  of  documents  pro- 
duced under  these  conditions,  and,  through 
this  recognition,  to  put  aside  those  adventi- 
tious and  temporary  elements,  so  puzzling  and 
perturbing  to  our  ignorance,  and  to  lay  a 
firmer  hold  upon  that  which  is  essential  and 
enduring.  For  so  long  as  we  read  the  Gospels 
with  the  constant  necessity  laid  upon  us  to 
reconcile  all  their  statements  as  supernaturaWy 
and  absolutely  true,  so  long  must  we  fail  to 
grasp  fully  their  natural,  and  all  the  more  di- 
vine, truth.  The  higher  criticism  of  the  New 
Testament,  in  making  it  possible  for  us  to  read 
this  New  Testament  with  that  free  play  of  in- 
telligence of  which  we  make  use  elsewhere, 
and  to  which  we  give  the  humble  name  of 
common-sense,  has  freed  us  from  the  preoccu- 
pation of  attempting  an  impossible  reconcilia- 
tion between  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
Synoptics,    or    even    between    the    Synoptics 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  139 

themselves  in  matters  of  detail,  by  showing 
us  that  such  reconciliation  is  not  a  necessity 
of  faith. 

Thus  scholarship  is  teaching  us  to  read  the 
Gospels  freely,  naturally,  and,  so  reading,  to 
find  in  *'  John,"  not  only  a  very  noble  and  beau- 
tiful original  religious  document,  but,  though 
not  an  historical  authority  in  the  ordinary 
meaning  of  the  word,  ''  an  authority  of  the 
first  rank  for  answering  the  question.  What 
vivid  views  of  Jesus'  person,  what  kind  of  light 
and  warmth,  did  the  Gospel  disengage?"' 
And  to  find  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  though 
they  were  written  *'  not  to  describe  the  Jesus  of 
real  life,  but  the  Christ  as  he  appeared  to  the 
hearts  of  his  followers,"  records  of 

"  priceless  value,  not  only  as  books  of  religious  edification, 
but  also  as  authorities  for  the  history  of  Jesus.  Brant  is 
not  wrong,  but  he  does  not  say  enough,  when  he  calls  the  ^ 
Synoptic  picture  of  Christ  the  finest  flower  of  religious  / 
poetry.  The  true  merit  of  the  Synoptists  is  that,  in  spite 
of  all  the  poetic  touches  they  employed,  they  did  not 
repaint,  but  only  handed  on,  the  Christ  of  history."  ' 

So  testifies  the  scholarship  of  the  present  day. 

'  Harnack  :   JV/iaf  is  Christianity  ? 

^  JUlicher  :  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 


I40  The  Religion  of  Christ 

And  now  that  the  confused  alarms  which 
greeted  the  application  to  the  New  Testament 
of  the  ordinary  methods  of  history  and  criticism 
are  beginning  to  die  away,  It  Is  becoming  mani- 
fest that  these  methods  are  destructive  only  to 
elements  adventitious  and  temporary  ;  that, 
indeed,  they  might  more  truly  be  called  real- 
ising methods,  since  they  are  making  It  possi- 
ble, as  It  has  never  been  possible  before,  for 
Christians  to  realise  the  personal  character  of 
their  Master,  and  the  essential  nature  of  his 
teaching. 

The  essential  nature.  For,  In  view  of  the 
peculiar  difficulties  presented  by  the  Gospel 
narratives,  Is  It  to  be  wondered  at  that,  when 
faithful  study  and  trained  discernment  and 
sympathetic  Insight  have  done  their  best,  doubt- 
ful points  remain  ?  Surely  not,  surely  the  real 
wonder  Is  that  these  doubtful  points  are  com- 
paratively unimportant,  so  far  as  the  practical 
teaching  of  Jesus  is  concerned.  Certainly  to 
me  It  seems  that,  the  more  one  comes  to  under- 
stand the  conditions  of  life  and  thought  pre- 
vailing In  the  Judsean  province  of  the  Roman 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  141 

Empire  "  about  the  fifteenth  year  of  the  reign 
of  Tiberius  Caesar,"  the  absorbing  nature  of  the 
ideas  under  the  domination  of  which  the  Gos- 
pels were  produced,  the  more  wonderful  it  be- 
comes that  there  should  be  no  real  question 
as  to  the  essential  character  of  this  practical 
teaching  of  Jesus  ;  and  the  more  one  feels  the 
strength  of  this  testimony  to  the  definiteness 
and  consistency  of  this  teaching,  and  to  the 
power  of  the  personality  with  which  the 
Gospels  deal. 

For  Jesus  was  not  only  '*  over  the  heads  of 
his  reporters,"  he  was  often  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  them.  Here,  to  me,  lie  the  "sure 
things"  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  ;  those 
sayings  which  were  directly  opposed  to  the 
pre-conceived  ideas  of  his  followers  and  which 
have  been  preserved  in  the  face  of  inevitable 
misunderstanding  and  perversion.  Again  and 
again  Jesus'  teaching  cut  across  the  dearest 
prejudices  and  prepossessions  of  his  people, 
again  and  again  it  disappointed  their  most 
cherished  expectations.  Trained  as  they  were 
to    rigid    obedience    to    the   law,  with   its  six 


142  The  Religion  of  Christ 

hundred  and  more  precepts,  affirmative  and 
negative,  how  strange  to  their  ears  must  have 
sounded  the  assertion  that  all  the  law  and 
the  prophets  as  well  were  summed  up  in  the 
love  of  God  and  man  !  Weighed  down  by 
heavy  burdens  of  traditional  observance  griev- 
ous to  be  borne,  laid  upon  their  shoulders 
by  Scribe  and  Pharisee,  how  far  could  they 
understand  the  nature  of  a  yoke  that  was 
easy  and  a  burden  that  was  light  ?  Ac- 
customed to  despise  the  half-blooded  and 
heteredox  Samaritan,  how  unexpected  must 
have  been  the  little  parable  which  by  one 
master-stroke  transformed  this  name  of  re- 
proach into  a  name  of  blessing  !  Accustomed 
on  the  other  hand  to  reverence  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  how  startling 
must  have  been  the  vehement  assertion  that 
the  publicans  and  the  harlots  should  go  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  before  them  !  And  this 
kingdom  ? 

**  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  They 
were  quick  to  respond  to  that  cry,  for  were 
they  not  wearying  for  its  coming  ? — but  what 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  143 

could  they  make  of  the  declaration  that  this 
kingdom  would  not  come  with  observation,  but 
that  it  was  within  them,  and  must  be  established, 
not,  visibly,  by  the  stretched-out  arm  of  an 
angry  God,  but,  invisibly,  through  the  infinite 
love  of  a  Father  ?  And  when  Jesus,  accepting, 
— as  I  believe  he  did, — accepting  the  perilous 
office  of  the  Messiah  of  this  kingdom,  fore- 
saw, with  those  clear  eyes  of  his,  that  such  a 
Messiah,  in  mortal  antagonism  to  Pharasaic 
hatred  and  intolerance  supported  by  Roman 
contempt  and  power,  would  fulfil  no  prophecy 
of  a  conquering  king  of  David's  line,  but  must 
rather  play  the  part  of  the  suffering  servant  of 
God,^  whose  portrait,  drawn  by  the  great 
Prophet  of  the  Return,  was  ever  present  in  the 
Master's  mind  ;  when,  foreseeing  the  end,  Jesus 
sought  to  warn  his  eager  and  confident  dis- 
ciples of  what  would  surely  ensue  when  they 
should  go  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  these  disciples,  impatient  for  the 
restoration  "■  at  this  time  "  of  the  kingdom  to 
Israel,    were    "amazed"    and    ''afraid"    and 

*  Isaiah,  chaps,  xlii.,  liii. 


144  The  Religion  of  Christ 

"perceived  not  the  things  that  were  said"? 
Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  they  often  *'  rea- 
soned among  themselves  of  his  words,"  and 
that,  after  such  reasoning,  he  should  be  forced 
to  ask  sadly,  ''  Do  ye  not  yet  perceive, 
neither  understand  ?  "  ^ — nay  that  they  should 
sometimes  themselves  record  that  they  **  under- 
stood not  his  sayings  and  were  afraid  to  ask 
him"?^ 

And,  these  things  being  true,  is  it  strange 
that  misunderstandings  and  half-understand- 
ings should  have  been  handed  down  with  the 
vital  truth  of  Jesus'  teaching?  No  more 
stranofe — still  it  seems  to  me — than  that  these 
misunderstandings  and  half -understandings 
should,  later,  under  the  influence  of  **  after- 
beliefs,"  have  hardened  into  definite  state- 
ments, explanatory  of  the  apparent  failure  of 
the  Messiah  ;  and  that  these  statements,  still 
further  hardened  into  dogma,  should  have 
come  to  form  the  chief  part  of  that  Catholic 
faith  which  is  necessary  before  all  things  to  be 
held  "by  whosoever  will  be  saved." 

*  Mark  viii.,  17.  '^  /did.  ix.,  32. 


Jesus  of  Nazareth  145 

But  oh,  the  pity  of  it ! — that  the  religion 
founded  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  should,  alone 
among  the  religions  of  the  world,  declare  that 
salvation  comes  of  orthodox  belief;  that  it 
should  declare  that  he  can  be  the  Saviour  only 
of  those  who  believe  him  to  be  the  second 
person  of  a  metaphysical  Trinity  !  For  God 
knows  that  we  all  need  salvation, — a  salvation 
that  does  not  mean  ultimate  admittance  to  some 
impossible  heaven,  but  that  means  safety  here 
and  now  in  the  midst  of  the  manifold  temp- 
tations of  this  human  life, —  temptations  of 
adversity  and  of  prosperity,  of  joy  and  of  sor- 
row, of  the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit.  Sw^ practi- 
cal salvation  is  the  mark  of  all  true  religion, 
and  that  religion  is  the  truest  which  has  most 
power  unto  such  salvation.  How  then  is  it 
with  Christianity  ?  How  great  a  practical  sal- 
vation does  it  offer  us  ?  We  know  that  the 
Christian  Religion  has  put  its  main  trust  in 
orthodox  belief,  and  orthodox  observance,  but 
how  is  it  with  the  Religion  of  Christ? — with 
the  religion  which  Jesus  not  only  taught  but 
lived,  thus  identifying  it  with  a  way  of  life  ? 


146  The  Religion  of  Christ 

In  the  midst  of  the  difficulties  and  temptations 
and  sorrows  of  life,  still  we  cry, — What  must  we 
do  to  be  saved  ?  What  answer  is  given  to  this 
eternal  question  by  the  Christian  way  of  life  ? 


VIII 

THE  WAY  OF  LIFE 

"  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth  ;  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing:  the 
words  that  I  have  spoken  unto  you  are  spirit  and  are  life." — The 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John. 

T^HE  nature  of  the  %<oay  of  life  taught  by 
^  Jesus  is  not  difficult  of  statement.  It 
is  the  manifestation  in  daily  living  of  certain 
definite  estimates  of  the  values  of  life,  and  of 
certain  equally  definite  methods  growing  out 
of  these  estimates  ;  and  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
have  furnished  Christendom  with  a  perfectly 
clear  statement  both  of  these  estimates  and 
these  methods.  Quite  plainly  Jesus  taught 
his  disciples  saying  : 

"Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit:  for  theirs  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven. 

"Blessed  are  they  that  mourn:  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. 

"  Blessed  are  the  meek:  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth. 
147 


148  The  Religion  of  Christ 

"Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness: for  they  shall  be  filled. 

"  Blessed  are  the  merciful:  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy. 

**  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  God. 

"  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers:  for  they  shall  be  called 
sons  of  God. 

"  Blessed  are  they  that  have  been  persecuted  for  right- 
eousness sake:  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

How  familiar  the  words  are  !  So  familiar  that 
it  requires  a  distinct  effort  of  the  mind  to  re- 
alise them  as  the  expression  of  a  definite  point 
of  view  as  to  the  values  of  life,  as  the  defi- 
nite opinion  of  this  teacher  as  to  what  makes 
for  human  happiness. 

And  as  it  is  with  these  familiar  estimates,  so  it 
is  with  the  equally  familiar  methods  taught  by 
the  Master.  We  know  them  by  heart,  or,  at 
least,  by  rote  ;  know  them  so  well  that  it  is 
hard  to  think  of  them  as  practical  suggestions 
toward  dealing  with  the  practical  difificulties 
of  human  life. 

Beware  of  all  externalism,  of  all  hypocrisy. 
Bear  in  mind  that  anger  and  lust  are  sins  as 
truly  as  are  murder  and  adultery ;  that  defile- 
ment is  from  within  and  not  without. 

Be  not  anxious  about  the  life  of  the  body, 


The  Way  of  Life  149 

eager  to  accumulate  possessions,  for  a  man's 
real  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
these  thinofs.  It  is  the  life  of  the  soul  that 
matters,  and  no  man  can  truly  serve  two 
masters.  He  must  chose  between  them,  and 
peace  comes  of  faithfulness  to  the  right  choice, 
of  singlemindedness.  Seek  first  that  kingdom 
of  heaven  which  is  within  you  ;  and  verily,  if 
ye  seek  ye  shall  find,  if  ye  ask  ye  shall  receive. 
But  take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your  righteous- 
ness that  men  may  see  it.  Let  your  alms  and 
your  prayers  and  your  fastings  be  known  only 
to  the  Father  which  seeth  in  secret.  Beware 
of  pride,  of  self-satisfaction,  of  all  hardness  of 
spirit ;  judge  not ;  consider  the  beam  in  thine 
own  eye,  not  the  mote  in  thy  brother's.  Be 
humble,  glad  to  serve, — it  is  he  that  loseth  his 
life,  that  spends  it  freely,  that  shall  save  it. 
Remember  that  evil  cannot  be  overcome  by 
evil  ;  that  it  can  be  overcome  only  by  good. 
Therefore  resist  it  not  ;  never  be  resentful, 
but  forgive,  if  it  be  necessary,  even  to  seventy 
times  seven  times — nay,  love  those  who  wrong 
you,  since  ye  are  the  sons  of  that  Father  who 


150  The  Religion  of  Christ 

maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the 
good.  For  what  is  it  to  love  them  that  love 
you  ?  All  men  do  this.  But  ye  are  to  do 
more  than  others  ;  ye  shall  be  perfect  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect. 

Counsels  of  perfection  indeed  !  Yet  none 
the  less  a  body  of  definite  injunctions  as  to  a 
possible  way  of  life,  a  possible  way  of  dealing 
with  this  puzzling  and  difficult  business  of  daily 
existence  ;  none  the  less  a  clear  statement  of 
a  definite  point  of  view  as  to  what  methods 
really  make  this  strange  human  life  of  ours 
worth  the  living.  One  is  tempted  to  paraphrase 
the  familiar  words  only  because  this  very 
familiarity  has  dulled  our  comprehension  of 
them  ;  but,  in  truth,  the  estimates  and  the 
methods  taught  by  Jesus  cannot  be  stated  more 
clearly  and  simply  than  they  are  stated  in 
Matthew  and  Mark  and  Luke. 

No,  the  question  to-day  is  not,  What  views 
did  Jesus  of  Nazareth  hold  concerning  the 
wise  conduct  of  life  ?  The  question  is 
rather.  Are  those  views  sound  ?  Was  he 
right  in  these  estimates  and  methods  ?     Did 


The  Way  of  Life  151 

he,  In  truth,  find  and  point  out  the  path  of 
peace,  the  gate  that  leadeth  unto  Hfe,  or  are 
his  ethical  teachings  to  be  regarded  as,  in  great 
measure,  a  dream  of  mere  unpractical  Ideal- 
Ism  ?  This  Is  the  question  which  Is  presenting 
itself  more  and  more  insistently  to  that  large 
and  growing  class  of  '*  plain  men,"  who.  In  the 
words  of  the  editor  of  the  Hibbert  Journal 
(January,  1904),  **  want  a  more  valid  proof  than 
has  yet  been  offered  that  the  world  is  serious 
when  It  professes  a  Christianity  which  Is  a  life 
and  not  a  creed"  ;  of  men  who,  having  re- 
ceived the  modern  answer  to  the  question, 
"What  Is  Christianity"?  are  now,  says  the 
editor,  asking  the  further  question,  **  Where  is 
this  Christianity  ?  " 

Now,  although  many  of  these  plain  men  may 
indeed  feel  that  the  Liberal  Movement,  '*  If  It 
has  diminished  the  intellectual  contradiction, 
has  increased  the  moral,"  and  may  therefore 
**  look  back,  not  perhaps  without  regret,  to  the 
easy  times  before  science  and  criticism  had  dis- 
sipated their  dogmatic  conception  of  religion," 
the  work  of  science  and  criticism  none  the  less 


152  The  Religion  of  Christ 

remains,  and  such  questionings  can  only  be 
met,  freely  and  frankly,  by  rational  answers  to 
rational  objections.  Let  us  then  from  a  purely 
rational  standpoint  briefly  consider  certain  as- 
pects of  this  insistent  problem  of  the  relation 
of  Christian  ethics  to  modern  civilisation. 

It  may  be  objected,  then,  that  the  attempt 
to  live  practically  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
assumes  too  much  in  assuming  that  the  ethical 
precepts  taught  by  a  Jewish  peasant  to  Jewish 
peasants  are  valid  for  the  larger  life  of  the 
great  industrial  world,  bent  on  scientific  and 
artistic  achievement ;  a  world  whose  advance 
in  civilisation  has  been  dependent  on  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation,  and  whose  machinery 
is  kept  in  running  order  by  the  principle  of 
selfishness.  Such  an  objection  declares  that  it 
always  has  been,  and  is  now,  manifestly  absurd 
to  recommend  indifference  to  material  posses- 
sions to  men  who  will  not  make  use  of  hand 
and  head  without  the  prospect  of  such  ma- 
terial reward  ;  to  urge  non-resistance  and  the 
love  of  enemies  upon  human  beings  whose  love 
of  fighting  is  an  inherited  instinct,  and  who 


The  Way  of  Life  153 

have  always  been  obliged  to  get  their  rights, 
as  the  phrase  is,  by  force.  It  points  out  that 
the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament  are  not  only 
impracticable  but  undesirable,  and  that,  in 
point  of  fact,  Christian  civilisation  has  always 
taken  this  view,  preferring  pagan  to  distinct- 
ively Christian  virtues,  and  finding  it  wiser  to 
worship  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  than  to  fol- 
low him  as  the  son  of  man  ;  that,  in  short,  the 
way  of  life  taught  by  Jesus  was  a  '*  way  "  possi- 
ble only  among  primitive  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, to  those  pure  in  heart  and  noble  in 
purpose,  but  ignorant  and  simple-minded  ;  the 
creation  of  an  enthusiast,  of  a  dreamer  ;  a  poem, 
which  touches  and  stirs  us,  but  which  has  little 
to  do  with  the  prose  of  daily  life. 

I  am  so  far  in  sympathy  with  this  objection 
as  to  agree  that  Jesus  was,  like  all  great  spirit- 
ual leaders,  a  poet,  and  that  he  habitually 
employed  the  method  of  poetry, — the  use  of 
concrete  images  and  of  vivid  and  picturesque 
illustrations.  There  is  always  difficulty  in  any 
poetry  for  those  who  fail  to  bear  this  in  mind, 
especially  in  religious  and  ethical  poetry.    For 


154  The  Religion  of  Christ 

average  humanity  is  distrustful  of  poetry  as  a 
practical  guide,  and  is  always  trying  to  turn  it 
into  prose.  Here  again  crops  up  the  old 
preference  for  the  letter,  the  old  difficulty  of 
reaching  through  the  letter  to  the  spirit.  And 
everything  has  helped  to  subject  the  poetic 
sayings  and  illustrations  of  Jesus  to  this  literal- 
ising  tendency.  When  Emerson  bids  us  hitch 
our  waggon  to  a  star,  we  do  not  go  and  pick 
out  our  star  ;  we  simply  feel  the  inspiration  of 
the  thought  expressed  in  this  concrete  image. 
But  when  Jesus  bids  us  give  our  cloak  to  him 
who  has  stolen  our  coat,  or  turn  the  other 
cheek,  or  love  our  enemies,  or  limit  our  speech 
to  yea  and  nay,  or  take  no  thought  for  the 
morrow,  we  find  it  curiously  hard  to  believe 
that  he  means  simply  that  it  is  the  true  way 
of  life  to  be  generous  and  unresentful  and  for- 
giving, to  avoid  over-speech,  and  to  keep  our- 
selves free  from  self-invented  cares.  And  in 
this  tendency  to  literalise  his  teaching  I  find 
the  main  cause  of  the  objection  to  this  teach- 
ing as  impractical.  For,  to  me,  the  spirit  of 
Jesus,  the  spirit  which  took  upon   itself  the 


The  Way  of  Life  155 

flesh  of  definite  and  vivid  illustrations  drawn 
from  the  life  about  him,  wholly  transcends 
these  illustrations,  and  the  limitations  of  the 
life  that  furnished  them. 

That  Jesus  was  a  Jewish  peasant  with  slight 
knowledge  of  many  of  the  interests  of  the 
great  world,  and  indifferent  to  much  that  this 
world  rightly  valued  ;  that  social  and  indus- 
trial problems  presented  themselves  to  him  in 
a  very  simple  form,  and  that  he  was  free  from 
many  of  the  special  perplexities  of  modern 
civilisation  is  —  to  me  —  perfectly  true.  But 
the  problem  of  human  life  remains  essentially 
the  same  in  all  lands  and  all  times.  Human 
nature  is  dominated  by  the  same  passions,  ex- 
posed to  the  same  temptations,  and,  thank 
God,  is  filled  by  the  same  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  in  the  east  and  in  the  west, 
in  the  past  and  in  the  present.  Still  is  justified 
the  keen  insight  upon  which  the  principles  of 
Jesus'  practical  ethics  were  founded,  and  still 
their  spirit  quickeneth. 

Take  the  two  chief  stumblinQ^-blocks  in  the 
way  of  the  reconciliation  of  these  ethics  with 


15^  The  Religion  of  Christ 

the  demands  of  modern  civilisation — the  atti- 
tude of  Jesus  toward  wealth  and  toward  war. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  his  thought  on  these  two 
points  was  much  influenced  by  the  social  and 
political  conditions  prevailing  in  Judsea  about 
"  the  fifteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius 
Caesar."  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  distrust  of 
wealth  was  increased  by  the  circumstance  that 
among  his  countrymen,  under  the  Roman 
domination,  a  large  fortune  usually  spelt  ex- 
tortion, a  grinding  of  the  faces  of  the  poor. 
But  has  modern  civilisation  really  changed  all 
that  ?  Have  we  really  outgrown  the  need 
of  Jesus'  repeated  warnings  that  Mammon  is  a 
master  that  requires  faithful  service  and  will 
accept  no  divided  duty  ?  Is  it  no  longer  true 
that  the  eager  pursuit  of  material  gain,  and 
the  dependence  upon  luxury,  clog  the  soul  of 
man,  dulling  our  sight  and  hearing  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  things  that  are  more  excellent  ? 
Are  we  no  longer  in  danger  of  forgetting  that 
a  man's  life  does  not  consist  in  the  abundance 
of  the  things  which  he  possesseth  ?  Or  is  it 
rather  true  that  modern  civilisation  is  steadily 


The  Way  of  Life  157 

demonstrating  the  essential  truth  of  Jesus* 
teaching,  demonstrating  it  through  the  very 
working  out  of  its  materiaHsm  ?  Only  the 
other  day  the  Wall  Street  Journal,  speak- 
ing with  pity  of  "  the  richest  man  in  the 
world,"  asked,  ''  Who  would  change  places 
with  him?"  Is  there  no  signification  in  that 
voice  ? 

And  as  to  that  other  stumbling-block — the 
stumbling-block  of  *'  non-resistance."  Here, 
again,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Jesus'  conviction 
that  evil  was  not  to  be  overcome  by  evil  was 
strengthened  by  his  consciousness  of  the  seeth- 
ing spirit  of  revolt  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lived 
and  taught ;  of  the  suppressed  rage,  the  fierce 
vindictiveness,  that,  smouldering  in  the  heart 
of  his  people,  blinded  them  to  the  useless- 
ness  of  the  attempt  to  restore  the  kingdom 
to  Israel  by  open  violence.  That  his  keen  in- 
telligence foresaw  the  political  doom  hanging 
over  this  resentful  nation  Is  manifest.  When 
the  little  company  of  wondering  provincials 
exclaimed  at  the  sight  of  Herod's  great  temple, 
"  Master,  behold,  what  manner  of  stones  and 


15S  The  Religion  of  Christ 

what  manner  of  buildings  !  "  ^  we  know  what 
answer  he  made.  It  was  for  the  coming  to 
Israel  of  another  kingdom  that  he  bade  them 
labour.  The  word  of  the  Lord  of  hosts 
came  unto  him  as  unto  the  older  prophet, 
saying  : 

"  O  house  of  Judah,  and  house  of  Israel;  so  will  I  save 
you,  and  ye  shall  be  a  blessing;  fear  not,  but  let  your 
hands  be  strong.  .  .  .  These  are  the  things  that  ye 
shall  do;  speak  ye  every  man  the  truth  to  his  neghbour; 
execute  the  judgment  of  truth  and  peace  in  your  gates: 
And  let  none  of  you  imagine  evil  in  your  hearts  against 
his  neighbour;  and  love  no  false  oath:  for  all  these  are 
things  that  I  hate,  saith  the  Lord."  ^ 

Only  by  such  methods,  and  not  by  the 
methods  of  hate  and  revenge  and  cruelty, 
might  the  true  kingdom  be  restored  unto 
Israel,  might  it  come  to  pass  that  "  out  of  all 
languages  of  the  nations,  men  should  take 
hold  of  the  skirt  of  him  that  Is  a  Jew,  saying, 
We  will  go  with  you  :  for  we  have  heard  that 
God  is  with  you." 

Is  It  wise  of  the  nations  to-day  to  look  upon 
such  teaching  as  this  as  mere  unpractical  Ideal- 

'  Mark  xiii.,  i,  2.  ^  Zechariah  viii.,  13,  16,  17. 


The  Way  of  Life  iS9 

ism  ?  Though  I  certainly  beHeve  that  the 
critical  state  of  Jewish  national  feeling  in  the 
time  of  Jesus  led  him  to  especial  insistence  on 
the  danger  of  doing  evil  that  good  may  come 
of  it,  have  we  proved  that  he  was  fundament- 
ally mistaken  in  his  conviction  that  there  ex- 
ists not  only  for  individuals  but  for  nations 
a  higher  law  than  that  of  *'an  eye  for  an  eye 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  "  ? 

As  we  look  about  to-day  upon  these  nations 
armed  to  the  teeth,  glaring  at  one  another  over 
their  bayonets  and  battle-ships,  we  may  well 
question  whether  we  rightly  call  our  civilisa- 
tion "  Christian  " — but  look  closer.  We  have 
been  watching  a  terrible  war  indeed,  but  when 
has  the  world  cried  out  against  such  destruc- 
tion of  Innocent  life  with  a  like  pity  and  horror  ? 
Is  there  no  signification  in  the  modern  voices 
which  are  Insisting  that  we  are  outgrowing 
the  appeal  to  sheer  physical  force,  not  only 
as  Individuals,  but  as  nations  ?  In  personal 
relationships  we  have  surely  learned  that  not 
through  the  methods  of  resentment  shall  the 
crooked  be  made  straight  and  the  rough  places 


i6o  The  Religion  of  Christ 

plain,  and  are  we  not  learning  at  last  that  the 
nation  which  shall  be  a  blessing  is  the  nation 
which  shall  indeed  execute  the  judgment  of 
truth  and  peace  within  its  gates  ? 

And  this  not  because  we  are  growing  weaker, 
but  because  we  are  growing  stronger ;  not  be- 
cause we  set  less  value  on  the  soldier's  virtues  ; 
not  because  we  are  less  thrilled  by  the  spec- 
tacle of  heroic  devotion,  of  the  brave  heart 
and  the  strong  hand ;  but  because  we  are 
learning  that  the  finest  courage  of  all  is  that 
calm,  self-reliant,  unflinching  courage,  which 
lay  back  of  the  non-resistance  of  Jesus,  the 
courage  whose  victories  are  those  of  peace. 
Never  have  the  nations  been  better  prepared 
for  war  ;  never  have  they  so  sincerely  united 
in  blessing  the  peacemaker. 

It  were  easy  to  say  more  as  to  the  relation  of 
modern  civilisation  and  the  ethical  teachinofs 
of  Jesus.  Let  me  rather  call  attention  to  the 
opinion  on  this  point  of  a  man  whose  char- 
acter, endowments,  and  experience  combined 
to  place  him  at  a  point  of  view  removed  as  far 
as  possible  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  car- 


The  Way  of  Life  i6i 

penter  of  Nazareth  In  the  last  days  of  Jewish 
national  existence.  These  are  the  words  of 
Goethe  In  his  eighty-second  year  : 

"  Let  mental  culture  go  on  advancing,  let  science  goon 
gaining  in  depth  and  breadth,  and  the  human  intellect 
expand  as  it  may,  it  will  never  go  beyond  the  elevation 
and  moral  culture  of  Christianity  as  it  shines  forth  in  the 
Gospels.  The  mischievous  sectarianism  of  Protestants 
will  one  day  cease,  and  with  it  the  hatred  between 
father  and  son,  sister  and  brother,  for  as  soon  as  the 
pure  doctrine  and  love  of  Christ  are  comprehended  in 
their  true  nature,  and  have  became  a  living  principle, 
we  shall  feel  ourselves  great  and  free  as  human  beings, 
and  not  attach  special  importance  to  a  degree  more 
or  less  in  the  outward  forms  of  religion.  Besides,  we 
shall  all  gradually  advance  from  a  Christianity  of  words 
and  faith  to  a  Christianity  of  feeling  and  action."  ' 

**Yes,"  says  the  rationalist  objector,  "  but,  granting 
that  the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament  are  neither  imprac- 
ticable nor  undesirable,  that  the  human  intellect  will 
never  go  beyond  the  moral  culture  of  Christianity  as  it 
shines  forth  in  the  Gospels,  yet  it  remains  true  that  the 
human  intellect  has  gone  far  beyond  the  intellectual  cul- 
ture of  the  Gospels;  that  the  conception  of  the  universe 
and  its  laws  common  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples  was  not 
only  unphilosophical,  but  in  many  respects  so  crude  as 
to  lead  to  serious  error." 

This  Is  certainly  true.  It  is  quite  obvious, 
for  example,  that   Jesus  shared  the   popular 

'  Lewes  :  Life  of  Goethe, 


1 62  The  Religion  of  Christ 

explanation  of  the  evil  in  the  world — that  it  was 
the  work  of  a  personal  devil  and  his  attendant 
demons.  It  was  an  explanation  of  the  ancient 
and  ever-present  problem  which  the  Jews 
seem  to  have  brought  back  with  them  from  the 
Exile,  and  which  was  certainly  a  great  falling 
off  philosophically  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
noblest  of  their  spiritual  ancestors,  a  standpoint 
which  finds  expression  in  such  words  as  these: 

"  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no 
God  besides  me:  I  girded  thee,  though  thou  hast  not 
known  me:  That  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of  the 
sun,  and  from  the  west,  that  there  is  none  besides  me.  I 
am  the  Lord  and  there  is  none  else.  I  form  the  light  and 
create  darkness:  I  make  peace,  and  create  evil:  I  the 
Lord  do  all  these  things."  * 

That  a  terrible  record  of  cruelty  and  suffer- 
ing has  to  be  directly  charged  against  the 
Christian  belief  in  the  devil  and  in  demoni- 
acal possession  cannot  be  denied.  The  Devil 
with  a  capital,  and  with  horns,  and  hoofs,  and 
tail,  was  pretty  much  master  of  ceremonies  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  horizon  is  still  lurid 
with  the  reek  of  burning  witches.    And  though 

'  Isaiah  xlv.,  5-7. 


The  Way  of  Life  163 

we  have  at  length  given  up  the  exorcising  of 
demons  out  of  our  fellow-men,  the  modern 
return  to  the  philosophy  of  the  Unknown 
Prophet  has  yet  to  exorcise  the  master  of  these 
demons  out  of  the  Christian  creeds.  Since, 
then,  Jesus  shared  the  unphilosophical  notions 
of  his  time  as  to  the  origin  of  evil,  and  not 
only  accepted  demoniacal  possession  as  the 
explanation  of  insanity  and  epilepsy  and  kin- 
dred nervous  diseases,  but  was  himself  a  most 
successful  exorcist,  why  should  we  in  the 
present  stage  of  culture  turn  especially  to  him 
for  light  upon  our  spiritual  path  ?  Why  not 
turn  to  other  leaders  whose  intellectual  and 
philosophical  outlook  was  far  wider  ? 

Again  I  am  in  sympathy  with  this  point  of 
view  in  so  far  as  I  believe  that  to  keep  us  in 
the  right  path  we  need  all  the  help  there  is,  all 
the  help  of  philosophy,  ancient  and  modern, 
and  that  some  of  the  best  help  comes  from 
pagan_ thinkers  who  did  not  consider  that  all 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world  had  been  delivered 
to  the  devil,  and  to  whom  he  choose  to  give 
them.     But  I  believe,  too,  that  some   of  the 


i64  The  Religion  of  Christ 

best  help  comes  from  Christians  who  from  time 
to  time  paused  in  their  labours  to  throw  an 
ink-stand  at  a  tangible  devil,  and  that  the 
best  help  of  all  still  comes  from  him  who  *'  by 
prayer  "  cast  out  demons  too  obstinate  for  his 
disciples. 

Theories  of  the  universe  we  must  have,  and 
by  all  means  let  them  be  as  satisfying  to  the 
human  Intellect  as  we  can  make  them,  but  still 
the  help  that  we  need  most  is  a  practical  help, 
a  help,  that  Is,  that  has  to  do  with  practice 
and  not  with  theory,  with  living  and  not  with 
hypothetical  explanations  of  life.  When  it 
comes  to  that,  has  our  modern  philosophy 
solved  the  problem  of  evil  ?  Increased  know- 
ledge has  destroyed  many  crude  and  in- 
adequate hypotheses ;  has  it  given  us  any 
hypothesis  more  satisfying  than  that  of  the 
Unknown  Prophet  ?  Have  we  learned  to 
understand  these  "  wonderful  things  "  since  the 
day  when  God  answered  the  Hebrew  ques- 
tioner out  of  the  whirlwind,  or  do  we  even  yet 
occasionally  darken  counsel  by  words  without 
knowledge  ? 


The  Way  of  Life  165 

Jesus'  hypothesis  as  to  the  origin  of  evil  was 
certainly  unphilosophical,  byt  his  method  of 
dealing  with  evil  remains  the  one  method  which 
has  been  substantiated  by  the  whole  experi- 
ence of  the  world,  pagan  and  Christian,  wise 
and  simple.  His  belief  in  demons  gave  unfor- 
tunate warrant  for  the  demonology  of  the 
Christian  Religion,  but  not  to  his  account  can 
be  charged  the  method  of  blood  and  fire 
with  which  the  Christian  Religion  sought  to 
subdue  and  destroy  demons.  His  method  was 
stated  very  simply, — "  Be  not  overcome  of  evil, 
but  overcome  evil  with  good." 

Modern  philosophy  has  done  away  with 
many  unphilosophical  ideas  about  evil — its 
origin  and  nature.  Will  it  ever  do  away  with 
this  method  of  dealinof  with  evil  ?  And  will  it 
ever  do  away  with  the  idea  that  lies  back  of  it 
— the  idea  that  power  is  with  goodness  and  that 
we  make  this  power  ours  if  we  ally  ourselves 
with  goodness,  so  that  all  things,  apparent  good 
and  apparent  evil,  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God  ?  No, — in  the  twentieth 
as  in  the  first  century,  the  authority  by  which 


1 66  The  Religion  of  Christ 

Jesus  commanded  the  unclean  spirits  is  the  one 
authority  which  unclean  spirits  obey.  Here  as 
everywhere  he  converted  the  idea  into  practi- 
cal efficiency. 

And  Is  not  this,  in  truth,  what  gives  Jesus 
his  unique  place  among  the  spiritual  leaders  of 
the  world, — his  power  of  turning  the  ideal  Into 
reality?  If  there  Is  one  fact  adequately  de- 
monstrated by  human  experience  It  Is  that  Ideas 
are  of  genuine  value  to  humanity  only  In  so  far 
as  they  are  converted  Into  life  ;  that  only  that 
portion  of  our  asserted  beliefs  **  tell,"  which  we 
actually  live.  Our  asserted  heViGh,  I  say,  for  It 
Is  obvious  that  we  do  live  our  real  beliefs — 
though  the  admission  Is  not  a  pleasant  one  to 
make.  We  may  not  be  aware  what  argument 
our  lives  may  have  lent  to  our  neighbour's  creed, 
but  we  must  recognise  that  this  kind  of  argu- 
ment Is  the  only  kind  that  really  matters  In  the 
long  run.  Truth  Is  mighty  and  shall  prevail, 
but  only  by  being  made  the  Z^z/^W^  truth, — only 
in  this  form  can  it  touch  and  arouse  the  heart  of 
man,  as  well  as  convince  his  mind.  We  con- 
vert the  Invisible  forces  of  nature  Into  "  power  " 


The  Way  of  Life  167 

by  visible  appliances  ;  so  we  convert  the  invisi- 
ble forces  of  ideas  into  power  by  visible  deeds. 
More  than  this,  most  of  us  only  comprehend 
ideas  as  we  see  them  in  action.  As  Mrs.  Ward 
says  in  one  of  her  books,  ''  There  is  no  ap- 
proaching the  idea  for  the  masses  except 
through  the  human  life."  This  is  a  fact  of 
universal  experience,  written  large  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  written,  on  a  smaller  scale, 
in  the  hourly  experience  of  every  one  of  us, 
and  it  is  this  fact  that  gives  to  the  Christian 
Gospels  a  preeminent  place  among  the  spiritual 
records  of  the  world.  Many  a  good  and  wise 
life,  many  a  faithful  and  brave  life  has  been 
lived  upon  this  earth  of  ours,  and  let  us  be 
thankful  from  our  souls  for  all  that  we  know  of 
such  lives,  but  the  world  s  literature  holds  no 
record  of  human  existence  so  simple,  so  pro- 
found, so  moving,  as  the  story  of  the  brief  life 
and  tragic  death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  The 
Gospels  are  human  documents,  imperfect  in 
many  ways,  but  the  impression  of  the  personal- 
ity with  which  they  deal  transcends  these  im- 
perfections and  for  ever  inspires  the  doubting 


1 68  The  Religion  of  Christ 

and  struggling  heart  of  humanity  with  the 
vision  of  what  humanity  may  attain  through 
the  power  of  a  living  faith,  of  a  faith,  that  is, 
that  is  lived. 

Ah !  here  is  the  truth  which  we  have  con- 
stantly touched  upon  and  with  which  we  are  at 
last  face  to  face,  the  truth  that  the  power  of 
Jesus  lay  in  his  faith,  in  that  profound  and  un- 
shakable faith  of  which  his  way  of  life  was  the 
natural  and  inevitable  expression.  His  ethical 
teaching  was  definite  and  unmistakable ;  there 
is  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  his  estimates  and 
his  methods,  but  these  estimates  and  methods 
were  not  the  results  of  a  reasoned  philosophy, 
of  an  ordered  ethical  system,  they  were  the 
spontaneous  flowering  of  a  living  faith.  The 
way  of  life  taught  by  the  Christ  was  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Christ  made  visible,  and  if,  believ- 
ing that  the  words  he  has  spoken  unto  us  are 
indeed  spirit  and  life,  we  seek  humbly  to  enter 
into  his  way  of  living,  we  must  first  seek  to 
enter  into  that  faith  of  which  this  way  of  living 
was  but  the  inevitable  manifestation. 


IX 


THE  RELIGION  OF  CHRIST 

"  I  can  of  myself  do  nothing  :  as  I  hear,  I  judge  :  and  my  judg- 
ment is  righteous;  because  I  seek  not  mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of 
him  that  sent  me.  .  .  .  If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my  Father  be- 
lieve me  not.  But  if  I  do  them,  though  ye  believe  not  me,  believe 
the  works:  that  ye  may  know  and  understand  that  the  Father  is  in 
me  and  I  in  the  Father." — The  Gospel  according  to  St.  yohn, 

T^HE  Religion  of  Christ,  the  faith  of  Jesus, 
*  — we  are  at  the  heart  of  Christianity  now. 
'*  What  we  call  Christianity,"  says  Amiel,  "  is 
a  vast  ocean  into  which  flow  a  number  of 
spiritual  currents  of  distant  and  various  origin. 
What  is  specific  in  it  is  Jesus,  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  JesusT 

The  words  are  profoundly  true,  and  the  ex- 
ponents of  liberal  orthodoxy  to-day  who  are  in- 
sisting that  Christianity  is  something  more  than 
an  ethical  code  have  firm  eround  under  their 
feet.  They  are  surely  right  when  they  point 
out  that  the  rationalism  which  would  reduce 

169 


1 70         The  Religion  of  Christ 

Christianity  to  such  a  code  in  reality  does 
away  with  Christianity  altogether,  since  the 
code  itself  is  but  the  flower  of  Jewish  ethical 
culture.  What  vitalises  this  code,  what  gives 
it  its  inspiring  and  energising  power,  is  Jesus 
himself,  "  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus." 
And  here  we  find  ourselves  at  the  crucial 
point  of  controversy,  to-day,  between  the  "New 
Theology,"  and  "  natural  religion."  That 
most  liberal  of  orthodox  liberals,  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott,  may,  I  suppose,  be  taken  as  a  fair  ex- 
ponent of  this  ''  New  Theology."  He  tells  us 
that  the  message  of  the  Christian  Church  is 
this  :-that  God  "  has  revealed  Himself  to  us  by 
coming  into  human  life  and  interpreting  Him- 
self to  us  in  the  terms  of  a  human  experience," 
and  that  this  message  '*  is  the  secret  of  the 
power  which  the  Evangelical  churches  possess, 
and  which  no  naturalistic  philosophy  or  mere 
ethical  teaching  can  ever  rival.  It  is  our 
faith  in  this  message,"  goes  on  Dr.  Abbott, 
"  which  makes  us  suspicious  of  all  philosophies 
which  seem  to  eliminate  the  supernatural  from 
the   world.     It    is   because    this    is   our   mes- 


The  Religion  of  Christ  171 

sage  that  we  insist  upon  what  are  commonly 
called  the  great  Cardinal  Doctrines  of  the  Evan- 
gelical faith,  such  as  Inspiration,  Incarnation, 
Atonement,  and  Regeneration.  This  is  not  be- 
cause we  are  enamoured  of  a  particular  system 
of  theology  ;  it  is  because  our  message  to  the 
world  is  like  that  of  Jacob  to  himself  when  he 
woke  from  his  dream  :  '  Surely  the  Lord  is  in 
this  place  ;  and  I  knew  it  not.'  "  ^ 

Therefore  to  even  the  newest  orthodoxy, 
the  orthodoxy  least  "  enamoured  of  a  particular 
system  of  theology,"  Jesus  remains  a  ''  super- 
natural"  being,  and  the  exponents  of  this 
new  orthodoxy  frequently  add,  that  unless  he 
was  a  supernatural  being,  his  self-assertion  can 
only  be  accounted  for  as  the  expression  of 
**  supreme  egotism." 

But  what  is  the  "  supernatural "  ?  What,  in 
this  year  of  our  Lord  nineteen  hundred  and 
five,  do  we  mean  by  the  word  ?  Do  we  mean 
by  it  a  something  outside  of  nature  which  man- 
ifests itself,  arbitrarily,  in  opposition  to  those 
universal  laws  of  nature  of   whose  profound 

'  Lyman  Abbott:    The  Christian  Ministry,  chap.  i. 


172  The  Religion  of  Christ 

and  subtle  workings  we  have  but  a  growing 
revelation  ;  or  do  we  mean  that  in  the  working 
of  these  laws  we  are  conscious — increasingly 
conscious,  as  I  believe — of  a  force,  that,  acting 
through  these  laws,  "  makes  for  righteousness," 
a  force  which  we  call  Divine  because  we  feel 
that  it  is  not  human,  which  we  call  Infinite, 
because  we  feel  that  it  is  not  finite  ?  Before 
one  can  answer  whether  or  not  his  philosophy 
**  would  eliminate  the  supernatural  from  the 
world  "  he  must  understand  what  is  meant  by 
the  supernatural,  and  to  a  philosophy  which 
finds  in  the  natural  a  constant  revelation  of  the 
supernatural,  the  whole  controversy  as  to  the 
nature  of  Jesus  must  seem  largely  a  contro- 
versy of  words  and  phrases  ;  and  this  whether 
we  say  with  Dr.  Abbott  that  God  "  has  revealed 
Himself  to  us  by  coming  into  human  life  and 
interpreting  Himself  to  us  in  the  terms  of  a 
human  experience,"  or  whether  we  say  with 
Dr.  Martineau  that  *'  the  union  of  the  two 
natures  in  Christ  resolves  itself  into  their  union 
in  man,  and  links  Heaven  and  Earth  in  rela- 
tions of  common  spirituality."     Believing  as  I 


The  Religion  of  Christ  173 

personally  do  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  "  a 
man  in  all  things  made  like  unto  his  brethren," 
I  yet  find  myself  in  perfect  sympathy  with  Dr. 
Abbott's  definition  of  Christianity,  founded 
upon  Max  Miiller's  definition  of  religion,  as 
"  such  a  perception  of  the  Infinite  as  mani- 
fested in  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus  Christ 
that  the  perception  is  able  to  produce  in  man 
Christlikeness  of  life  and  character." 

As  for  the  '*  self-assertion  "  of  Jesus,  putting 
aside  the  fact,  always  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that 
we  know  his  actual  words  only  through  the 
medium  of  a  half-century's  tradition,  founded  on 
the  reports  of  those  who  loved  and  reverenced, 
but  who  frequently  **  did  not  understand,"  is 
such  self-assertion  really  the  mark  of  "■  supreme 
egotism  "  ?  Is  it  not  rather  the  mark  of  all  pro- 
found and  passionate  conviction  ?  It  is  in  the 
certainty  of  the  faith  of  Jesus  that  I  find  the 
explanation  of  his  so-called  self-assertion.  He 
refuses  the  title  of  "good  master," — "Why 
callest  thou  me  good  ?  None  is  good  save  one, 
even   God,"^ — but  he  knew  that  the   things 

»  Mark  x..  i8. 


1 74  The  Religion  of  Christ 

which  he  taught  had  been  dehvered  unto  him 
of  his  Father,  since  he  had  '*  received  not  the 
spirit  of  the  world  but  the  spirit  which  is  of 
God,  that  he  might  know  the  things  which  are 
freely  given  to  us  by  God."  ^  He  who  has  re- 
ceived ''the  spirit  which  is  of  God,"  and  who 
feels  himself  to  have  received  it,  must  always 
be  open  to  the  charge  of  self-assertion  and  of 
egotism,  for,  though  he  who  speaks  against  the 
Son  of  man  may  be  forgiven,  it  is  hard  indeed 
to  forgive  him  who  speaks  against  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  was  the  certainty  of  the  faith  of 
Jesus,  his  sense  of  spiritual  power  in  the  cer- 
tainty that  God  was  with  him,  that,  as  I  be- 
lieve, led  him  to  respond  at  last  to  the  eager 
craving  of  his  people  for  a  deliverer,  and  in 
those  critical  hours  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  to 
accept  the  terrible  responsibility  of  the  Mes- 
siahship,  and  to  steadfastly  set  his  face  to  go 
to  Jerusalem,  not  indeed  as  a  lamb  led  to  the 
slaughter,  but  as  a  great  soul  upon  whom  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  had  descended,  anointing 
him,  making  of  him  a  Christ,  that  he  might 

'  I  Cor.  ii.,  12. 


The  Religion  of  Christ  i75 

not  only  preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek, 
the  broken-hearted,  and  the  captive,  but  that 
he  might  denounce  unsparingly  false  religion 
with  its  hypocrisy  and  bigotry  and  cruelty, 
and,  facing  with  level  eyes  the  rage  of  those  by 
whom  he  was  despised  and  rejected,  pour  out 
his  soul  unto  death  and  live  for  ever,  not  as 
the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  but  as  the  Christ  of 
God,  *'  in  whose  life  and  character  "  the  Infinite 
was  so  manifested,  that  the  perception  is  able 
to  produce  in  man  Christlikeness  of  life  and 
character." 

Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried 
our  sorrows,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 
upon  him  ;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed. 
The  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus  made  of 
the  heaviest  responsibility  ever  assumed  by 
man,  a  yoke  that  was  easy  and  a  burden  that 
was  light, — here  lay  his  salvation,  and  if  we 
might  learn  of  him  to  share  in  this  reHgious 
consciousness,  if  we  might,  through  commun- 
ion with  this  life  and  character,  enter  into  the 
Religion  of  Christ,  would  it  not  also  prove  our 
salvation  ? 


i;^  The  Religion  of  Christ 

We  are  weak,  dragged  down  by  animal  in- 
stincts and  impulses  ;  helpless,  often,  before  the 
sins  which  do  so  easily  beset  us :  it  was  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  Jesus  that  kept  him, 
not  only  pure  in  deed,  but  pure  in  heart ;  that 
gave  him  power,  alike  in  the  fields  of  Galilee 
and  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  to  answer,  **  Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan,"  and  that  brought 
angels  to  minister  unto  him. 

We  are  selfish,  lovers  of  ease,  concerned  for 
personal  comfort :  It  was  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  that  held  him  tranquil  when 
he  knew  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  and  that 
made  him  gladly  spend  his  life  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister. 

We  are  troubled  about  many  things,  anxious 
for  the  ''necessaries"  of  life, — who  can  define 
them  ? — eager  for  possessions :  it  was  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  Jesus  that  kept  him 
free  from  the  clutch  of  material  things,  that 
held  him  peacefully  assured  that  even  food  and 
raiment  are  but  things  to  be  added  unto  the 
true  life — the  life  that  does  not  consist  in 
abundance  of  possessions. 


The  Religion  of  Christ  177 

We  are  despondent,  morose,  afraid  to  be 
glad :  it  was  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Jesus  that  led  him  to  rejoice  in  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  in  the  growing  corn,  in  the  flower 
of  the  field,  in  the  bird  of  the  air;  and  that 
made  him  no  less  welcome  at  the  feast  than 
in  the  house  of  mourning. 

We  are  hampered  at  every  turn  by  conven- 
tions, concerned  for  the  outside  of  the  platter, 
constantly  accepting  estimates  which  we  know 
to  be  false  :  it  was  the  religious  consciousness 
of  Jesus  that  held  ever  clearly  before  him  the 
true  values  of  life ;  that  made  him  equally  at 
ease,  equally  the  master,  in  the  house  of  the 
Pharisee  and  of  the  Publican,  with  the  rich  and 
with  the  poor  ;  that  made  him  the  lover  of  little 
children  and  of  the  simple-hearted  who  can  re- 
ceive the  kingdom  as  a  little  child. 

We  are  dull  of  sight,  blind  to  what  is  not 
upon  the  surface,  given  to  miserable  misunder- 
standings ;  it  was  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Jesus  that  gave  him  a  quick  and  sure  insight 
into  the  hearts  of  men  and  women,  that  taught 
him  what  was  in  man  ;  so  that  the  common 


178  The  Religion  of  Christ 

people  heard  him  gladly  and  all  the  city  was 
gathered  together  at  his  door. 

We  are  bitter,  unforgiving,  ungenerous, 
scrupulous  in  exacting  penalties  :  it  was  the 
religious  consciousness  of  Jesus  that  enabled 
him  to  forgive  all  things,  because  "  they  know 
not  what  they  do." 

We  are  cowardly,  afraid  of  suffering,  physi- 
cal and  mental,  afraid  of  the  responsibilities  of 
life,  afraid,  continually,  of  what  may  happen  :  it 
was  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus  that 
rendered  him  absolutely  fearless,  capable  of  de- 
fying, without  hesitation,  a  religious  conserva- 
tism bitterly  intolerant  and  vindicative ;  and 
that  carried  him  from  one  danger  to  another, 
with  a  courage,  quiet,  steady,  magnificent, 
until  in  the  heart-breaking  record  of  the  last 
days  we  behold,  ''the  incomparable  hero  of 
the  Passion." 

And  what  of  faith  and  hope  and  love  in  the 
Religion  of  Christ  ? 

Of  faith  ?  We  are  full  of  doubt,  uncertain, 
wavering,  like  the  surge  of  the  sea  driven  by 
the  wind  and  tossed  :  it  was  the  religious  con- 


The  Religion  of  Christ  179 

sciousness  of  Jesus  that  made  him  Hve  his  hfe 
In  the  unfaiHncr  assurance  that  the  Son  of  man 
was  the  Son  of  God  and  that  the  Father's  hand 
was  leading  him  ;  which  made  it  possible  for 
him  to  accept  the  cup  of  bitter  humiliation  and 
apparent  defeat  as  from  that  Father's  hand,  and 
In  the  hour  of  mortal  agony  still  to  pray  the 
prayer  of  his  life, — ''  nevertheless,  not  as  I  will, 
but  as  thou  wilt." 

With  hope  ?  We  are  despondent,  easily  dis- 
heartened, easily  hopeless  of  better  things  :  It 
was  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus  that 
led  him  to  bid  his  disciples  be  '*  never  despair- 
ing," since  they  were  "  sons  of  the  Most  High," 
and  that  gave  him  undying  hope  In  the  possi- 
bilities of  human  nature. 

And,  finally,  with  love,  —  the  greatest  of 
these  ?  We  are  cold.  Indifferent,  unsympa- 
thetic :  It  was  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Jesus  that  filled  him  with  a  compassion  so 
profound,  so  tender,  so  mighty,  that  the  very 
sound  of  his  voice,  and  touch  of  his  hand, 
brought  healing  to  the  sick  In  body  and  In  mind. 
We  are  narrow  In  judgment,  self-righteous, 


i8o  The  Religion  of  Christ 

unloving  :  it  was  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Jesus  that  revealed  to  him  that  justification  lay 
rather  in  the  softened  humility  of  the  publican 
than  In  the  hard  pride  of  the  Pharisee  ;  that 
made  him  very  gentle  to  the  sinner  that  re- 
penteth  ;  that  enabled  him  to  strengthen  the 
weak  knees,  to  lift  the  fallen,  even  to  make  it 
possible,  through  the  power  of  redeeming  love, 
for  the  sinner  to  go  and  sin  no  more.  And 
therefore  was  It  that  these  sinners  drew  near 
unto  him  for  to  hear  him. 

It  was,  in  brief,  the  religious  consciousness 
of  Jesus,  that  made  his  life  so  full  of  priva- 
tion, discouragement  and  suffering,  the  life 
that,  whatever  may  be  our  creed,  we  all  know 
in  our  heart  was  the  life  preeminently  worth 
living.  It  was  a  life  so  humble,  so  obscure, 
despised  as  much  by  the  contempt  of  the 
Roman  as  rejected  by  the  hate  of  the  Jew, 
that  we  can  find  no  certain  record  of  It  In 
the  great  world's  history,  yet  a  life  of  which 
nineteen  centuries  have  echoed  the  words  of 
the  centurion,  —  '*  Truly  this  man  was  the 
Son  of  God  ! "    And  still  the  Christian  world 


The  Religion  of  Christ  i8i 

repeats  the  words,  still  it  offers  them  as 
an  answer  to  that  still  older  cry,  "  Who  will 
show  us  any  good?"  Have  they  proved  an 
unreal  and  inadequate  answer?  Indeed  I  do 
not  believe  this.  Still  the  life  in  which  was  in- 
carnate the  idea  of  the  redeeming  power  of 
love  remains  the  light  of  men.  But  I  do  be- 
lieve that  we  may  hope  to  share,  in  some 
measure,  its  patience  and  wisdom  and  courage, 
its  faith  and  hope  and  love,  not  through  the 
outward  salvation  of  the  Christian  Religion, — 
the  salvation  of  a  creed,  but  through  the  in- 
ward salvation  of  the  religious  consciousness 
of  Jesus,  of  the  Religion  of  Christ. 

But  here  we  must  listen  once  more  to  the 
objector, — still  the  rationalist  objector,  though 
on  this  point  he  will  receive  strong  support 
from  the  dogmatist.  Granting  that  the  way 
of  life  which  Jesus  taught  was  the  ideal  way, 
and  that  he  made  It  real  through  the  power  of 
his  religious  consciousness,  how  does  this  help 
the  most  of  us  who  are  crawling  between 
heaven  and  earth  ?  We  say.  Behold  what  this 
man's  religious  consciousness   made  possible 


1 82  The  Religion  of  Christ 

for  him, — let  us  then  commit  ourselves  to  his 
faithfulness  and  seek  to  share  in  this  religious 
consciousness.  As  well  might  we  say,  Behold 
what  the  genius  of  Beethoven  and  Raphael 
and  Shakespeare  made  possible  for  them, — let 
us  then  share  their  genius.  For  as  truly  as  it 
was  given  to  Beethoven  to  hear  symphonies, 
and  to  Raphael  to  paint  pictures,  and  to 
Shakespeare  to  write  poems,  so  truly  was  it 
given  to  Jesus  always  to  behold  the  face  of  his 
Father  in  heaven, — "  for  this  also  is  a  gift" 
Jesus  was  a  religious  genius  ;  how  may  average 
humanity  share  In  genius  ? 

So  the  objector ; — and  I  must  assuredly  agree 
that  average  humanity  can  no  more  create 
what  Jesus  created  than  It  can  create  a  Ninth 
Symphony  or  a  Sistijie  Madonna  or  a  Mac- 
beth.  Nevertheless  average  humanity  Is  not 
shut  out  from  sharing  the  gifts  of  its  elect. 
That  degree  of  creative  power  which  we  call 
genius  Is  possessed  by  the  few  only,  but  what 
Is  the  meaning  of  the  thrill  with  which  the 
many  look  and  listen,  with  which  average  hu- 
manity responds  to  all  created  beauty  ?    Surely 


The  Religion  of  Christ  183 

It  is  because  in  spite  of  the  infinite  variety  of 
human  temperament  and  endowment,  '*  the 
same  heart  beats  in  every  human  breast."  We 
are  very  sure  of  our  right  to  share  in  the  aes- 
thetic and  intellectual  treasures  of  humanity, 
and  we  know  well  that  our  capacity  for  such 
sharing  depends  largely  upon  ourselves,  upon 
the  degree  of  our  ''  culture  ";  why  are  we  so  slow 
to  see  that  this  is  true  also  of  spiritual  treasure  ? 
that  here,  too,  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  culture  ? 
We  are  ready  to  take  infinite  trouble  to  lift 
ourselves  to  the  level  of  the  symphony  or  the 
picture  or  the  poem  ;  why  do  we  make  so  little 
effort  to  lift  ourselves  to  a  higher  spiritual  level  ? 
In  very  truth  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  the 
conviction  that  we  must  be  saved,  that  salva- 
tion is  somethinor  to  be  done  for  us  from  with- 
out,  had  resulted  in  a  sort  of  spiritual  palsy  so 
that  we  lie  paralysed,  and  only  by  the  helping 
hands  of  some  deep  experience,  a  great  joy, 
or  a  yet  mightier  sorrow,  can  be  borne  into  the 
healing  presence  of  a  power  which  bids  us  rise 
and  stand  erect  and  go  our  way,  returning 
thanks  to   God.      But  often  our  difficulty  is 


1 84  The  Religion  of  Christ 

rather  spiritual  indolence  than  disease.  So 
long  as  we  read  the  New  Testament  conven- 
tionally, artificially,  with  no  sense  of  its  reality, 
we  shall  surely  not  y^^/ to  the  full  the  quicken- 
ing power  of  the  Religion  of  Christ ;  and  cir- 
cumstances have  brought  it  about  that,  for 
most  of  us,  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  read 
the  New  Testament  not  conventionally.  To 
put  aside  the  veil  which  the  Christian  Religion 
has  put  upon  the  Religion  of  Christ,  we  need 
all  the  help  we  can  get,  not  only  from  without 
but  from  within.  For  even  now  when  scholar- 
ship has  done  so  much  to  lift  the  veil,  '*he 
who  does  not  give  himself  to  the  labour  of 
interpretation  and  assimilation  in  reading  the 
Gospel, — he  who  does  not  penetrate  through 
the  letter  and  the  form  to  the  inspiration 
and  the  inmost  consciousness  of  the  Master, — 
cannot  understand  and  profit  by  his  teaching."  ^ 
**  For  to  go  along  that  road,"  says  St.  Augus- 
tine, *'aye,  and  to  reach  the  goal,  is  all  one 
with  the  will  to  go  ;  but  it  must  be  a  strong  and 
single  will,  not  a  broken-winged  wish  fluttering 

'  Sabatier,  The  Religions  of  A  uthority. 


The  Religion  of  Christ  185 

hither  and  thither,  rising  with  one  pinion,  strug- 
gHng  and  falling  with  the  other,"  for,  as  ever, 
**  according  to  owx  purpose,  shall  be  the  success 
of  our  spiritual  profiting." 

But  if  the  will  be  strong  and  single,  if  we 
do  give  ourselves  to  the  labour  of  interpretation 
and  assimilation,  the  reward  is  sure.  For  no 
gift  is  so  freely  shared  as  the  religious  gift, 
no  giver  is  so  generous  as  the  giver  of  the 
things  of  the  spirit.  If  we  touch  but  the 
border  of  his  garment  power  comes  forth  from 
him  to  heal  us,  and  by  his  faith  are  we  made 
whole  and  go  in  peace. 

Wearied  by  cant  phrases,  sickened  by  cheap 
emotion,  one  almost  hesitates  to  speak  of  the 
love  of  Jesus,  yet  still  and  for  ever  **  blessed  is 
he  that  understands  what  it  is  to  love  Jesus, 
— to  love  him  and  keep  him  for  his  friend."  ^ 

So  cried  the  monk  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  still  is  heard  the  cry. 

"  O  thou  great  friend  to  all  the  sons  of  men, 

Who  once  appeared  in  humblest  guise  below, 
Sin  to  rebuke,  to  break  the  captive's  chain, 

And  call  thy  brethren  forth  from  want  and  woe! 
'  Thomas  i  Kempis. 


i86  The  Religion  of  Christ 

We  look  to  thee  :  thy  truth  is  still  the  light 

Which  guides  the  nations  groping  on  their  way, 

Stumbling  and  falling  in  disastrous  night, 
Yet  hoping  ever  for  the  perfect  day. 

Yes,  thou  art  still  the  Life;  thou  art  the  Way 

The  holiest  know, — Light,  Life,  and  Way  of  heaven; 

And  they  who  dearest  hope  and  deepest  pray, 

Toil  by  the  light,  life,  way  which  thou  hast  given."  * 

*  Theodore  Parker. 


CONCLUSION 

"And  it  came  to  pass     .     .     .     that  the  disciples  were  called 
Christians  first  in  Antioch." — The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

OUT  who  wrote  the  lines  at  the  end  of  the 
■*-^  preceding  chapter  ?  An  infidel  —  yes, 
an  infidel.  So  at  least  the  whole  Christian 
Church,  orthodox  and  heterodox,  with  rare 
unanimity  declared  him.  He  was,  they  said, 
an  unbeliever,  unfaithful  to  the  Christia7i  Re- 
ligion, Was  he  also  unfaithful  to  the  Religion 
of  Christ  ? 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  facing  of  objec- 
tions in  the  way  of  any  effort  toward  substi- 
tuting the  salvation  of  the  Religioii  of  Christ 
for  the  salvation  of  the  Christian  Religion 
of  a  nature  altogether  different  from  those  we 
have  been  considering, — the  objections  of  the 
dogmatist.     And   it   Is   quite    obvious   that    I 

187 


1 88  The  Religion  of  Christ 

cannot  hope  to  meet  these  objections  in  any 
such  way  as  that  in  which  I  have  tried  to  meet 
those  of  the  ratlonaHst, — that,  in  truth,  I  cannot 
hope  to  meet  them  at  all.  For  it  is  evident 
that  the  considerations  which  satisfy  me  will 
not  satisfy  the  dogmatist,  and  there  is  an  end 
of  the  matter. 

**  For  see,"  says  the  dogmatist,  '*  you  talk 
of  substituting  for  the  Christian  Religion 
something  which  you,  following  Lessing,  call 
foolishly,  and  somewhat  blasphemously,  the 
Religio7i  of  Christ,  unheeding  the  fact  that  by 
so  doing  you  take  away  all  authority  for  any 
religion  whatever.  For  when  you  declare  the 
Church  to  be  a  purely  human  Institution,  and 
the  Bible  to  be  a  collection  of  purely  human 
documents,  and  Jesus  to  have  been  a  man  as 
we  are,  what  authority  have  you  left  for  your 
so-called  Religion  of  Christ?  If  Jesus  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  counsels  of  God  beyond 
what  Is  possible  to  humanity,  then  his  faith 
had  no  more  authority  than  the  faith  of  other 
prophets  and  seers.  And  If  the  record  of  his 
teaching  was  protected  by  no  miracle  from  hu- 


Conclusion  189 

man  error  and  misrepresentation,  how  can  we 
be  sure  what  his  faith  and  his  teaching  really 
were  ?  The  individual  soul  is  left  free  not 
only  to  find  out  the  Religion  of  Christ  for  it- 
self, but  to  discriminate  in  regard  to  the  re- 
ceived teaching  of  the  Master  as  it  would 
discriminate  in  regard  to  the  received  teaching 
of  Socrates  or  Epictetus  or  Augustine  or  a 
Kempis,  on  the  assumption  that  its  authority 
Is  relative  and  not  absolute.  So  that,  for  a 
revelation  of  God's  own  truth,  warranted,  as 
it  were,  by  supernatural  manifestations,  you 
would  substitute  a  mere  faith  In  God  and  an 
ethical  code  and  call  it  the  Religion  of  Christ'' 
So  the  dogmatist.  And  I  can  only  answer 
— even  so.  For  I  do  find  no  ultimate  au- 
thority for  religion  except  in  the  soul  of  man, 
in  the  internal  witness,  speaking  in  the  reli- 
gious experience  of  mankind.  This,  rather  than 
a  supernatural  pronouncement  warranted  by 
miracle,  is  "  revealed  religion  "  to  me — as  it 
was  to  James  Martlneau.  And  I  believe  that 
It  is  by  this  revelation  that  all  teaching  must 
be  tried,  and  that  what  we  are  to  seek  from 


I90  The  Religion  of  Christ 

all  teaching  is  an  inspiration  that  we  can  make 
our  own,  not  an  authority  that  we  may 
blindly  obey. 

But  the  dogmatist  will  find  only  arrogance 
and  license  in  this  answer,  and  will  go  on  to  say  : 

**  Moreover  in  doing  away  with  the  special 
authority  of  Jesus,  you  do  away  with  the  value 
of  his  assurances  that  man  is  immortal.  How 
could  he  know  ?  More  than  this  :  by  regard- 
ing the  stories  of  the  resurrection,  as  well  as 
the  stories  of  the  birth,  as  poetic  legends 
created  by  hope  and  faith  and  love,  you  do 
away  with  all  proof  of  immortality,  a  proof 
which  has  been  the  main  strength  of  the  Christ- 
ian Religion  from  the  days  of  St.  Paul  on, 
and  leave  us  to  exclaim  with  him  that  *  if 
Christ  hath  not  been  raised,  then  is  our 
preaching  vain,'  nay — *  our  faith  also  is  vain  ! '  " 

If  I  answer  the  dogmatist  that  I,  too,  be- 
lieve that  Jesus  '*had  the  words  of  eternal 
life  "  ;  this  answer  will  not  satisfy  him  at  all, 
and  with  reason,  for  what  I  mean  by  eternal 
life  is  not  what  he  means.  He  means  a  future 
life  with  a  heaven  for  the  saints  wherein  they 


Conclusion  191 

shall  "attain  to  everlasting  felicity,"  and  a  hell 
for  the  sinners  wherein  they  shall  be  subjected 
"  to  most  grievous  torments  in  soul  and  body, 
without  intermission,  in  Hell-fire,  for  ever": 
and  I  mean  what  Amiel  means  when  he  says, 
**  The  eternal  life  is  not  the  future  life  ;  it  is 
life  in  harmony  with  the  true  order  of  things, 
—life  in  God." 

And  if  I  say  that  it  seems  to  me  that  this  is 
what  Jesus  also  meant  by  ''eternal  life,"  the 
dogmatist  will  scout  me.  Certainly  Jesus  did 
share  in  the  Pharisee's  belief  in  a  future  life] 
with  a  heaven  and  a  hell.  His  ''Gehenna," 
however,  seems  to  have  been  the  objective 
point  of  the  scribe  and  the  Pharisee  rather 
than  of  the  sinner ;  and  his  heaven  was  cer- 
tainly a  present  one.  Whether  we  translate 
his  most  sublime  saying,  "The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  within  you,"  or  "  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  in  the  midst  of  you,"  the  meaning 
is  the  same  so  far  as  time  is  concerned.  When 
the  scribe  asked  him  what  he  must  do  to  in- 
herit eternal  life,  we  know  what  was  Jesus' 
answer,    and   how   the   scribe,    surprised    and 


1,92  The  Religion  of  Christ 

touched  out  of  his  intention  to  entrap  the 
teacher,  exclaimed,  *'  Of  a  truth.  Master,  thou 
hast  well  said."  ''  And  when  Jesus  saw  that 
he  answered  discreetly,  he  said  unto  him,  Thou 
art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 

Still  to  me  he  who  loves  God  and  man  is 
not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  may 
trust  the  Father  for  his  inheritance  ;  still  to 
me  the  commandment  of  God  is  life  eternal, 
and  he  that  believeth  hath  eternal  life  ;  and 
still  I  believe  that  through  such  lives  as 
those  of  Jesus  and  his  faithful  disciples  in 
all  ages  '*  is  opened  to  us  the  gate  of  ever- 
lasting life."  And  here  there  comes  into  my 
mind  what  was  said  by  St.  Augustine  and  his 
mother  as  they  talked  of  *'  that  life  which 
never  comes  to  be,  but  is,  as  it  was  and  shall 
be  evermore,  because  in  it  is  neither  past  nor 
future  but  present  only,  for  it  is  eternal ;  for 
past  and  future  are  not  eternal." 

"  We  said  then  :  If  the  tumult  of  the  flesh  were  hushed  ; 
hushed  these  shadows  of  earth,  sea,  sky  ;  hushed  the 
heavens  and  the  soul  itself,  so  that  it  should  pass  beyond 
itself  and  not  think  of  itself  ;  if  all  dreams  were  hushed, 
and  all  sensuous  revelations,  and  every  tongue  and  every 


Conclusion  193 

symbol ;  if  all  that  comes  and  goes  were  hushed — They 
all  proclaim  to  him  that  hath  an  ear  :  '  We  made  not  our- 
selves :  He  made  us  who  abideth  for  ever  * — But  sup- 
pose that,  having  delivered  their  message,  they  held 
their  peace,  turning  their  ear  to  Him  who  made  them, 
and  that  He  alone  spoke,  not  by  them,  but  for  Himself, 
and  that  we  heard  His  word,  not  by  any  fleshly  tongue, 
nor  by  an  angel's  voice,  nor  in  the  thunder,  nor  in  any 
similitude,  but  His  voice  whom  we  love  in  these  His 
creatures. — Suppose  we  heard  him  without  any  inter- 
mediary at  all — Just  now  we  reached  out,  and  with  one 
flash  of  thought  touched  the  Eternal  Wisdom  that  abides 
above  all — Suppose  this  endured,  and  all  other  far  in- 
ferior modes  of  vision  were  taken  away,  and  this  alone 
were  to  ravish  the  beholder,  and  absorb  him,  and  plunge 
him  in  mystic  joy,  might  not  eternal  life  be  like  this 
moment  of  comprehension  for  which  we  sighed  ?  Is 
not  this  the  meaning  of  '  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord  '  ?  "  ^ 

But  I  know  well  that  such  *'  mysticism  "  as 
this  will  seem  to  the  dogmatist  but  a  poor  sub- 
stitute for  the  accredited  evidence  of  wit- 
nesses that  several  days  after  death  they  saw 
and  touched  a  resuscitated  body  ;  that  "  Christ 
did  truly  rise  again  from  death,  and  took  again 
his  body,  with  flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  ap- 
pertaining to  the  perfection  of  man's  nature, 

'  Confessions,  book  ix.,  chap.  x. 


194  The  Religion  of  Christ 

wherewith  he  ascended  into  heaven  and  there 
sitteth,  until  he  return  to  judge  all  men  at  the 
last  day." 

*'  No,"  the  dogmatist  will  say,  ''  Christianity 
is  more,  far  more,  than  a  mystical  faith  and 
a  moral  code  ;  it  is  a  body  of  doctrine  founded 
on  sufficing  evidence,  not  only  intellectual  but 
sensuous  ;  and  entrenched  in  a  divinely  guided 
ecclesiastical  organisation,  furnished  with  sa- 
cred and  sacramental  rites.  And  only  because 
it  is  this,  has  it  any  warrant  to  teach  a  way  of 
life — as  an  adjunct.  And  since  this  is  so,  no 
one  who  does  not  accept  this  body  of  doctrine, 
or,  at  least,  the  authority  of  the  instrument  of 
salvation  which  guards  this  body  of  doctrine, 
has  any  right  whatever  to  claim  the  name  of 
Christian.  I  am  sorry,"  says  this  kindly  dog- 
matist, *'  but  whatever  such  an  one  may  be,  he 
is  710^  a  Christian." 

Well,  the  dogmatist  may  be  right.  It  may 
be  that  the  name  Christian  should  be  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  professors  of  ^/le 
Christian  Religion.  This  does  not  seem  un- 
reasonable.    It  is  a  name  grown  dear  to  us  all 


Conclusion  195 

through  long  association,  but,  after  all,  it  is 
only  a  name,  and  one  unfamiliar  to  the  ears  of 
Jesus.  It  was  in  Antioch,  as  we  know,  that 
the  disciples  were  first  called  Christians.  And 
those  of  us  who  may  not  be  called  Christians 
may  none  the  less  earnestly  and  humbly  seek 
to  be  disciples.  For  none  the  less  remains  to 
us  the  record  of  that  life  lived  long  ago  in 
the  Syrian  land ;  none  the  less  may  we  turn 
for  inspiration  to  that  brave  and  beautiful 
spirit  to  whom  the  love  of  God  and  the  love 
of  man  gave  the  power  to  understand,  to  con- 
sole, to  uplift,  to  strengthen,  not  alone  the 
years,  but  the  centuries ;  not  alone  a  little 
band  of  wandering  disciples,  but  the  great 
multitude  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden  ; 
none  the  less  may  we  find  renewed  faith 
and  hope  and  love  for  all  humanity  in  the 
faith  and  hope  and  love  of  this  noblest  of 
the  world's  Christs,  the  prophet  Jesus,  from 
Nazareth  in  Galilee,  Son  indeed  of  the  living 
God. 

And  none  the  less,  O  Thoic  Father  of  all 
the  brethren  of  thy  Christ,  may  we,  through 


19^  The  Religion  of  Christ 

communion  with  this  pure  and  true  and  noble 
life,  lift  up  our  hearts  to  Thee,  in  whom  do  we 
put  our  trust,  in  whose  light  shall  we  see  light, 
in  knowledge  of  whom  standeth  our  eternal 
life,  whose  service  is  perfect  freedom. 

The  Christian  Religion  has  been  tried  for 
eighteen  centuries  and  the  Religion  of  Christ 
remains  to  be  tried.  It  may  seem  rather  ''  ex- 
travagant," this  saying,  but  is  it  not  true  that 
it  does  '*  express  the  spirit  in  which  any  new 
movement  for  the  improvement  of  theology 
must  be  carried  on  "  ?  And  is  It  not  also  true 
that  the  twentieth  century  is.  In  reality,  seek- 
ing, as  no  century  has  ever  sought  before,  to 
try  the  Religiofi  of  Christ — to  prove  It  and 
test  It ;  that  it  Is  laying  a  steadily  decreasing 
emphasis  upon  dogma  and  ritual,  a  steadily  in- 
creasing emphasis  upon  a  way  of  life  ?  Such, 
at  least.  Is  the  unmistakable  signification  of 
many  of  the  new  voices.  And  mingling  with 
these  new  voices,  strengthening  and  sustain- 
ing them,  come  many  older  voices  out  of  the 
centuries  that  have  gone,  and   among  them. 


Conclusion  197 

from  the  far  past,  from  the  very  dawn  of  Christ- 
ianity, comes  this  voice  : 

"  A7id  he  gave  some  to  be  apostles  j  and  some  prophets  j 
and  some  evangelists  ;  and  some  pastors  and  teachers  j  for 
the  perfecting  of  the  saints^  unto  the  work  of  minister- 
ing^ unto  the  building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ :  till  we  all 
attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith ^  and  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  Son  of  God^  u?ito  a  full-grown  man^  unto  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fubiess  of  Christ :  that  we  may  be  no 
longer  children^  tossed  to  and  fro  and  carried  about  with 
every  wind  of  doctrine,  by  the  sleight  of  7?ien^  in  craftiness, 
after  the  wiles  of  error  ;  but  speaking  truth  in  love^  may 
grow  up  in  all  things  tmto  him  which  is  the  head,  even 
Christ. 

"  /,  therefore,  the  prisoner  in  the  Lord,  beseech  you  to 
walk  worthily  of  the  calling  wherewith  ye  were  called,  with 
all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  longsuffering,  forbearing 
one  another  in  love  j  givifig  diligefice  to  keep  the  unity  of 
the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  There  is  one  body  and  one 
Spirit,  even  as  also  ye  were  called  in  one  hope  of  your  call- 
ing; one  Lord,  07ie  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  a7id  Father 
of  all,  who  is  overall,  and  through  all,  and  in  all.'' 


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